Posting from Richard Reynolds on ZooHistory 2010, because anything from Richard is of great interest.

Dear Colleagues

Heinz Moeller's "Der Beutelwolf" (1997) is quite valuable, particularly for the list of thylacines. Three of those listed as arriving at National zoo on Sept 3, 1902 were almost certainly pups born to a female en route. Below is the painting of them by Gleeson as published in William M. Mann's WILD ANIMALS IN AND OUT OF THE ZOO, Smithsonian (1930), plate facing p. 218. Note the tail of one pup protruding from the pouch.

Marvin Jones once mentioned this to me. I believe it to have been the case. It hardly seems likely that a shipment of four would have left Australia for the zoo. The Washington Post, coinciding with the arrival date, likely contained an item about this unusual situation. [I have found that newspaper accounts about the arrivals and births of animals in zoos are a valuable source of verification, corroboration, and supplementation, particularly since many zoos have not preserved old records or never kept them in the first place.]

Finally, artist Gleeson would seem to have portrayed what he saw at the zoo. I think it safe to say that National zoo is the only one in the West to have shown captive born thylacines.

Before leaving this topic - - - At the Parkinson Library of the Circus World Museum, Baraboo, WI there is an 1885 courier advertising features of the Burr Robbins Circus (based in Janesville, WI). A list of animals to be seen in its menagerie includes - - "Pair of tiger wolves from Tasmania."

Whether this is showman's puffery, I cannot say for certain - -they were not above it. However, Robbins did have a sophisticated menagerie including, for sure, both hippo and African rhino. Moreover, at that time thylacines should have been fairly easy to obtain by animal dealers. Many of those on the Moeller list arrived in Europe during the 1880s. At that time, American circuses were major customers of the animal dealers because they had more money to spend. This requires further study. All we can say for now is that the opportunity was there for Robbins to have obtained thylacines.

It is unfortunate that thylacines disappeared before there was an opportunity to develop a body of knowledge about their captive requirements. A lady in Hobart, Mary Grant Roberts, kept a number of them rather successfully but she died in 1921.