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A COUPLE of weeks ago, I got sucked down an internet rabbit hole – or should I say tiger trap? It arrived in the form of a tantalising of a man claiming to have rediscovered a charismatic animal that officially went extinct in 1936. Speaking from a small town in northern Tasmania, Neil Waters, president of the , claimed he had camera-trap footage of what he said were three thylacines, aka Tasmanian tigers. The pictures were being assessed by an expert at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, he said, and there would be further announcements in due course.

As the video trended on Twitter, I wondered: could it be true?

My heart said yes; my head overruled. I know a thing or two about thylacines. In 2017, I interviewed conservation biologist Bill Laurance at James Cook University in Queensland about his plan to look for them around the remote Cape York peninsula, a known thylacine haunt – until about 4000 years ago.

It seemed an odd gamble for such a distinguished biologist. The ranks of thylacine hunters are largely filled with eccentrics, wishful thinkers and publicity seekers. Yet he thought there was a slender chance and, given that he was doing field work in the area anyway, what was the harm?

A few weeks later, he confirmed that he had seen neither hide nor hair of a thylacine. Absence of evidence and all that, but in his opinion, the thylacine remained an ex-marsupial.

And if they aren’t in Cape York, they aren’t anywhere. They certainly aren’t in Tasmania, even though that is the last place they were seen alive. The island’s many land mammals regularly turn up dead by the side of the road, killed by passing vehicles. Thylacines are never among them.

I hate to say I told you so, but a few days later was released and the . The animals weren’t thylacines but almost certainly pademelons, small wallaby-like marsupials.

I was briefly disappointed – I would dearly love thylacines to still be alive. But I was also strangely relieved. Weird as it seems, the rediscovery of the thylacine would represent a setback to our efforts to save the endangered species that we know for sure still exist.

“Denialism’s goal isn’t to establish the truth, but to advance a rhetorical position by any means necessary”

A few weeks before the Tasmanian tiger non-news broke, I was reading a paper in the journal about the “creeping rise of extinction denial”. In it, Alexander Lees at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK and his co-authors warn that a campaign of biodiversity denial has begun. It has been festering for some time, but broke cover after the 2019 publication of a shocking report by the

Though a relatively new form of science denial, extinction denial follows a well-thumbed playbook. It comes in three basic flavours: literal denial, which is flat-out rejection of the scientific evidence; interpretive denial, which doesn’t dispute the findings but says they are being exaggerated; and implicatory denial, which accepts there is a problem but claims that it doesn’t justify radical action. All three exist to prevent or delay measures that might challenge the existing socioeconomic order.

It is no surprise that extinction denial exists. What is a surprise is how long it has taken. Biodiversity science is relatively easy to pick rhetorical holes in. Like climate science, it relies on often-sparse data and modelling to discern long-term trends against loud background noise. Even establishing beyond reasonable doubt that a species has gone extinct, let alone that human activity caused it, is challenging.

That is why I am somewhat relieved that the thylacine remains extinct. Imagine the lulz that extinction denialists would have had from its rediscovery. They said it was extinct! They said humans wiped it out! They said that the sightings were a hoax! What else are they hiding? What else isn’t really extinct?

Dismissing these claims as scientifically ignorant is itself ignorant of denialism. As Lees points out, denialism’s objective isn’t to establish the truth, but to advance a rhetorical position by any means necessary.

I am not suggesting that the thylacine hunters are motivated by denial. On the whole, they are honest people who just want to believe. But that won’t stop denialists from exploiting their claims.

Maybe their well-meaning but quixotic efforts should be expended elsewhere. Soon after the latest round of Tasmanian tiger hype, the Australian government . I would like to say there is no denying the biodiversity crisis anymore. But I know better than that.

Up next week: Annalee Newitz