Since you are over there in that part of the world, I will relate a curious incident while on the island of New Guinea. Worked on a mining job and we had a number of Aussie "bunny huggers" come in and do wildlife research near our operation. We ususally provided quite a bit of support and I had dinner with them on occasion. We had a community liason guy who spoke the native language and he got the Aussies connected up with the locals for help with their gear, porters and guides.
After one trip they came back and were all excited about finding a new type of tree kangaroo. It was a big deal for them. Never been seen or captured before.
It seems that they were paying the locals to go out and bring in fauna to them. Not a big deal, everybody was happy and they ended up with two new tree kangaroos. Great.
Then a few weeks later the community liason guy comes to me and is all excited. He said he described a Tasmanian tiger to the locals and they said they knew all about it, even had a name for it and did he want them to "go get one."
I told him no and under no circumstances did I want a dead thylacine dumped on my doorstep.
We never pursued it but the guy was convinced that the tiger was still in the mountain forests of New Guinea.
IDK if there ever was any tigers on the island but he was a believer.
Edit to add: just found this link:
https://news.mongabay.com/2013/05/could-the-tasmanian-tiger-be-hiding-out-in-new-guinea/
