Martin, a mercenary, is sent from Europe by an anonymous biotech company to the Tasmanian wilderness on a hunt for the last Tasmanian tiger.

A strange race of human-like marsupials appear suddenly in Australia, and a sociologist who studies these creatures falls in love with a female one. Is this a dangerous combination?

An extinct species, the Tasmanian tiger.

A long-forgotten legend, “The Pieman” aka Alexander Pearce, who was hanged for cannibalism in 1824.

Both had a desperate need to survive; both could have living descendants within the Tasmanian bush. Four hikers venture deep into isolated territory to find one of these legends, but which one will they come upon first?

A Tasmanian tiger wanders around in his zoo enclosure. A glacier is slowly melting. Facing its predicted disappearance, nature exerts its fury, bursts over the frame and resists its extinction by transformation.

Recorded by pioneers as far back as 1805, the Tasmanian tiger has become an intensely mystifying Australian icon, whose entire existence has become the stuff of both fable and legend. This program investigates a chequered past and puts the speculation into perspective, taking into account the tragic culling and ‘bounty era’ where the carnivorous creatures were thought to be solely responsible for a considerable loss of farmers’ livestock. Balancing the facts with personal reflections from Tasmanian locals, scientists and other informed practitioners, The Tasmanian Tiger is a thought-provoking and revealing look at the extraordinary life and death of one of Australia’s most mysterious marsupials.

The original film of the Tasmanian tiger (also known as the thylacine) was shot by Australian zoologist David Fleay in 1933 on black-and-white film. Recently, this historic footage has been colorized and digitized by a team of international experts. You can watch the remastered footage of the last-known surviving Tasmanian tiger here. The thylacine, which resembled a medium-to-large-sized canid, had dark transverse stripes radiating from the top of its back. Sadly, the last known thylacine died in 1936 at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.

A trio of experts venture into Tasmania's undeveloped wilderness in search of the Tasmanian Tiger, one of the most terrifying predators ever to walk the earth.