Santa Barbara Man Stars in New Animal Planet TV Special

A Santa Barbara man will be in the national spotlight this week.

Forrest Galante is set to star in a new TV special airing on Animal Planet.

The show is called, Extinct or Alive: Tasmanian Tiger.

Galante is on the hunt for the Tasmanian tiger in Tasmania.

The animal was declared extinct 80 years ago.

But is it still alive?

That is the premise of the show.

“Believe it or not, that happens all the time. Animals are declared extinct and they are found to be out there. It’s called a Lazarus taxon,” Galante said. “So with my unique background and skill set in finding rare wildlife, I was implored to go out into the bush, in this case in Tasmania and look for the Thylacine, a large marsupial predator to see if they are still out there from when they were declared extinct 80 years ago.”

Galante won’t give the ending away.

“What I can say is that there is a very exciting conclusion. Something we weren’t really expecting that we did find,” Galante said. “The message of the show is really important and it’s that we must not give up on wildlife just because we haven’t seen it for awhile. If you stay tuned, hopefully in the future there will be a lot more exciting instances where I go looking for things that may or may not be out there.”

Extinct or Alive: Tasmanian Tiger airs on Tuesday, May 31 at 9 p.m. on Animal Planet.