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Thylacines (Post-1936 Sightings)

Not only have I seen the "German Tourist" photo - I've tracked down a copy of one (sssshhh - it's not supposed to be on the net...)

A bit of background info first:

Even this newspaper cannot say beyond a doubt that the pictures are of a live animal. The Herald and its sister paper, The Age, ran extensive tests on the pictures after being offered them three weeks ago. These included an examination by thylacine experts and an independent photographic specialist but the results did not conclusively show a live tiger, and we declined to buy the pictures.
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The tourist took them on February 3 while driving through Tasmania's rugged central highlands with his girlfriend.

As evening approached they turned off the main road, and found somewhere to park for the night. He grabbed a bottle, put his camera bag around his neck, and set out looking for water. Not far into the bush he spotted a striped animal.

As the animal approached, he snapped twice. It then vanished and he he dashed back to tell his girlfriend. They returned to the spot but the creature was nowhere to be found.

The man's brother, who lives in Victoria, arranged through a journalist on The Age to show the pictures to Mr Mooney and Mr Bleathman.

"One," Mr Bleathman said later, "was very badly out of focus." The other, also blurred, revealed an animal partially obscured behind a log, 15 or 20 metres away. But a tail, and those distinctive stripes were clearly visible in the frame.

He described the thylacine evidence as "inconclusive", but cautiously added that without analysis from photographic experts "we can't rule it out".
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Nick Mooney of the Tasmanian Parks saw the original images (remember, these are scans of newspaper clippings of intentionally modified versions of the originals) and said they obviously showed a thylacine. As far as I know, the originals are only to be seen in Issue 4/2006 in the Swiss Magazine "mysteries". Might have to track that down somehow.

So far, so inconclusive. And tada - here it is:

tastiger_wideweb__430x243.jpg


A longer discussion and some actual input from the guy who took the shots is here:

http://www.cryptomundo.com/bigfoot-repo ... ne-photos/
 
Well done Zilch, really well done, I looked for ages but couldn't find anything. I'm very grateful for that.
Predictably though the photos don't show any more than Cameron's or the other one through the grass. But again though its the back story that lets it down for me, firstly that two Germans in the internet age are going to visit Tasmania without having heard of the Thylacine, I don't know if you could check this in German Zilch, but in English the second result for Tasmania, wiki, has an article on it. Secondly that if they were genuine they wouldn't be hanging on to them or arseing about with Swiss mystery mags or demanding 400 Euros from cryptomudo, (make sure you check your PM's there ;) )), to me it doesn't make sense.

The photo that still needs looking at though is the one shown on TV here once of the paws of a Thylacine, supposedly shot in apr 1995, showing elongated plantar pads on the rear and five digits on the front, now if you can find that one, that would be bloody miraculous.

Just in case anyone's interested here is one of the Cameron photos-
http://wherelightmeetsdark.com/index.ph ... nThylacine
 
oldrover said:
But again though its the back story that lets it down for me, firstly that two Germans in the internet age are going to visit Tasmania without having heard of the Thylacine, I don't know if you could check this in German Zilch, but in English the second result for Tasmania, wiki, has an article on it. Secondly that if they were genuine they wouldn't be hanging on to them or arseing about with Swiss mystery mags or demanding 400 Euros from cryptomudo, (make sure you check your PM's there ;) )), to me it doesn't make sense.
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That may be a fair point, but for example, when my brother visited me here, he wanted to drive to the Outback for the afternoon. :lol: Now, he's a smart man, runs his own business and has more money than I ever will. But the reality of the size of this place simply hadn't hit him. The money question - well, that's a different one. But Mr Emmerich flew back twice to Tasmania paying for the trips himself. Whatever that Swiss mag paid him, I'm sure it wouldsn't have covered the cost of the trip.

And a last point - they didn't originally plan to come to Australia, but had to cancel a trip somewhere else because of the tsunami. So they decided to visit his brother in Australia, who suggested the trip to Tasmania. And the German Wiki page makes one brief mention of the "Beutelwolf" on the Tasmania page.

It's all a bit odd - yes, but not altohether implausible. I'll check to other link when I have a bit more time.
 
I'm in no way a Thylacine expert, but that photo doesn't look 'right' to me...the colour looks too orange and tigerish, the coat seems too smooth.
Doesn't the angle it's got its head at seem suspiciously similar to some of the last Thylacine footage?


Edit; Just went a looked at some Thylacine footage, here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odswge5onwY (you may want to mute the sound ;)) and it seems they did chuck their heads up at that angle a lot...I don't know what that means in relation to the pic :?
 
Ok, one more time for those who aren't familiar with the history of that shot:

What you are seeing here is a heavily edited, cropped and high-lighted scan of a print of the "original" picture. As such - it is useless as "proof" of anything.

With so many other sightings of odd phenomena the story rests on the credibility of the witnesses. I'm not here or there on this one, but will give them the benefit of the doubt. They may have tried to milk it for some money - but heck, can you really blame them?
 
Fluttermoth said:
I'm in no way a Thylacine expert, but that photo doesn't look 'right' to me...the colour looks too orange and tigerish, the coat seems too smooth.
Doesn't the angle it's got its head at seem suspiciously similar to some of the last Thylacine footage?
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Please don't take this as a personal attack, but this is one thing that has bugged me for a long time. It looks "suspiciously " like a real Thylacine? Well, perhaps because it is one? You can use that argument both ways... What other than a Thylacine would you expect it to look like?

As i had explained above, this is a heavily edited scan of a picture - the original looks nothing like it. In fact, without digital enhancement, you can't see anything much at all. That explains the weird colours.
 
Zilch5 said:
Fluttermoth said:
I'm in no way a Thylacine expert, but that photo doesn't look 'right' to me...the colour looks too orange and tigerish, the coat seems too smooth.
Doesn't the angle it's got its head at seem suspiciously similar to some of the last Thylacine footage?
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Please don't take this as a personal attack, but this is one thing that has bugged me for a long time. It looks "suspiciously " like a real Thylacine? Well, perhaps because it is one? You can use that argument both ways... What other than a Thylacine would you expect it to look like?

As i had explained above, this is a heavily edited scan of a picture - the original looks nothing like it. In fact, without digital enhancement, you can't see anything much at all. That explains the weird colours.
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That's ok mate; I don't take things personally very often :)
I didn't realise the mods to that pic would alter the colour so much.
To clarify, the only reason I mentioned the angle of the head was because I was wondering if it might be some sort of screen shot from the old footage; now I've gone back and watched the footage properly, seems like it was a common behaviour for Thylacines, so the point sort of dissapeared...
Not unusual happening in my hypotheses ;)
 
Sighting in 2000?

7th April 2000 (definate as it was the day before my wedding) I was walking on Flinders Beach on the Mornington Peninsula here in Victoria when I saw at a distance of maybe 100 to 200m a greyhound like creature with striped hindquarters and a long head. I had my camera round my neck but as soon as I raised it to take a pic the creature saw the movement and vanished. I Can't remember how it moved. Certainly not in any way that struck me as un-doglike.
I was with a friend but he didn't see it. I commented to him at the time that I was 50% convinced it was a Thylacine but that it could also have been a mangy greyhound.

I was at the time an avid reader of Fortean Times and was aware of reported Thylacine sightings so that may have coloured my interpretation of what I saw.
 
I've tried to reply to this as well, but didn't get through. I'm not impressed by the mainland sighting but the Tasmanian one is really interesting.

As I've said before I don't hold out any hope now, but any sort of history is really valuable.

I've just realised this is the poor sod whose wife went missing isn't it.
 
As I've said before I don't hold out any hope now, but any sort of history is really valuable.
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I really don't know why you're so pessimistic about the possibility of thylacine survival. Much of Tasmania is incredibly remote and rugged, there is plenty of space and the thylacine was/is not a large animal. It's definitelty one of the most likely crytpids IMO.
 
Well it's the complete lack of thylacines that worries me more than anything else.

They may not have been large animals but they were the apex predator there and there's good evidence to suggest that they used large ranges. Large ranges which are now considered to be too fragmented.

There's a chance but it's very, very small.
 
The Arabian leopard was thought to be extinct for donkey years till one of them strolled into a the suburbs of a city a few years back.
When they went out to film the snow leopard it took about 6 years for them to track one down and film it. That's 6 years in the field.
Animals can adapt far more than we give them credit for.
 
lordmongrove's post above, gives pause for thought -- but I very much feel "in synch" with oldrover on the subject of the thylacine: whilst I would totally love for the species to be hiding out and still living in Tasmania, virtually everything heard in recent years suggests to me that that is vanishingly unlikely.
Quake42 said:
I really don't know why you're so pessimistic about the possibility of thylacine survival. Much of Tasmania is incredibly remote and rugged, there is plenty of space...
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And lordmongrove writes on the concurrent "thylacines" thread: "there are parts of Tasmania where the maps say 'insufficient data'."

Overall, a proposition which I'd wish to feel more able to buy. The perception borne in on me, is that Tasmania is really pretty tiny: a basic triangle 350 by 350 by 300 km., the large-ish majority of that area, settled and tamed. And (a matter which I mentioned on another thread here, "On the Track of the Tasmanian Wolf"): I come across indications -- largely from one particular book, but reinforced elsewhere -- that intensive logging is going on in the wild, forested parts of the island, with commercial pressures and interests resulting in the protected-ness of on-paper protected areas, being in some doubt.

Two sides to that coin can be envisaged: destruction of the thylacine's putative last refuges (and oldrover writes on this thread, "there's good evidence to suggest that they used large ranges...which are now considered to be too fragmented") -- no more habitat, no more thylacines. Or, might this havoc not result in the actual flushing-out of a relict thylacine or two? As yet, so far as we know it hasn't. I'm no learned expert; and as said above, I'd love to be wrong here -- but on this matter, I can't feel optimistic.
 
lordmongrove said:
The Arabian leopard was thought to be extinct for donkey years till one of them strolled into a the suburbs of a city a few years back.
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Hang on a minute where do you get that info from? I can find population continuous population estimates.

If you want to bring the Arabian Leopard into it though, just look at the poor little bugger's prognosis in a much larger area. It's drawing parallels like that that's made me so bloody pessimistic.

Fair enough with the Ounce but they did get it, how many people search for the thylacine and, I mean a concerted search, and how long have they done it for.

Please remember I'm not saying that thylacines have been extinct for long, I'm not even saying there may just conceivably be a few individuals left (though I doubt it), what I am saying is that as a species they've had it.

Mortifying as that may be.
 
I'll trawl through the back issues of Animals and Men because i know we covered it at the time. I can't quote when untill i find the reference.
It may be that it was in some country were it was localy extinct and i've remembered wrong. If so apologies in advance.

Most of the people searching for the thylacine do it off their own backs with limited time and money (Col Baily for example).
I've yet to go to Tasmania but Lars Thomas has and he tells me the forests are huge and thick. On the mainland you are talking about a vast area and in NG you could hide King Kong.
 
1995 Thylacine sighting

Many of you here will be aware of the 1995 sighting from the North West of the island, it was made by a wildlife service ranger and was considered to be fairly reliable and sparked a Government search.

He observed an animal he was sure was a Thylacine and said it was "about half the size of a fully matured German shepherd dog, he had
stripes over his body from about half way down, and his tail was curved
like a kangaroo's". He watched the animal for two minutes through his binoculars.
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http://www.quora.com/Tim-ONeill-1/answers/Thylacine

This would seem to extend the animals survival in the wild to the mid 1990's, twelve years after the last truly compelling sighting by Hans Naarding.

Unfortunately whilst writing Carnivorous Nights, a book dedicated to thylacines and other Tasmanian wildlife and conservation, the authors Margaret Mittlebach and Micheal Crewdson visited the area and asked for information at 'The Pub in the Paddock', only to be told it was a hoax. This was later confirmed by Col Bailey.

No names were mentioned in the book, but what was relayed to them by the landlord was that one of the former owners had paid a ranger 500 dollars to make a false report, hoping that it would increase the area's appeal to tourists. It worked.

Sadly this puts us back thirty years to the last reliable sighting. Also, and whether the two are related or not, the Tasmanian government no longer funds any research into sightings.
 
And how about that 2007 sighting? Plus there are still new sightings coming in almost monthly. Still hope IMO.
 
I've just looked up that German sighting which was what I was afraid you were referring to, that was in 2005.

So please give us some more about this 2007 sighting.
 
New, to me, site containing thylacine sightings from the last 20 years or so.

http://www.tasmanian-tiger.com/guestbook.html

Each to their own about how good the accounts are, but I have to highlight this;

It reminded me of our farm dog which had recently been hit by an auto and the accident resulted in a protruding hip and made our dog a bit crippled. The tiger (that's what I believe they were) moved in much the same way, as if it had something wrong with its back.
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A saying about ducks springs to mind.

However there seems to be one mentioned by Nick Mooney in a TV interview which sounds unusual if nothing else because of its context;

The last exciting one was about 18 months* ago up near Lake Rowallan. That was a couple of guys hunting said a thylacine ran across in front of their vehicle and in the spotlight and they were poaching at the time, so illegally hunting, so obviously something happened to excite them enough to come forward and say what they'd seen.
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* page dated 2010.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/conten ... 330748.htm
 
This from a Government website;

Examination of photographs taken of alleged thylacine sightings have generally revealed the animal in question to be a feral dog with striped markings. The most intriguing of these was a report made in 1977 of a group of thylacines, including a female with young in her pouch, somewhere on the New South Wales-Victorian border. Some photographs of the sighting were published in the press and appear convincing. Scientists are reluctant to say any more without hard evidence.
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http://australia.gov.au/about-australia ... nian-tiger
 
oldrover said:
I've just looked up that German sighting which was what I was afraid you were referring to, that was in 2005.

So please give us some more about this 2007 sighting.
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I have memory from one of my research binges on the Thylacine that the most recent 'reliable' sighting was in 2007; this may not be true if my memory is failing me.

Many people still believe, as backed by the constant (however dwindling) number of sighting reports, and given all the open space in Tasmania and especially southern Australia, and given the skiddish nature of the Thylacine, that it's possible to still exist.
 
my research binges on the Thylacine
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I have those too.

The only sighting I can come up with from 2007 is a film taken on the mainland, I've only seen one still from it on a CFZ blog, and it's definitely a canid.

You might be thinking though of a sighting mentioned by Mooney from around that time, when two poachers came forward claiming to have seen one in Northern Tasmania. Slightly more details of this over on the 'Thylacine sightings unearthed' thread.
 
Have spent a bit of time going through the sightings often mentioned as anecdotal evidence for their survival. Came across this site; http://www.tassietiger.org/ It seems to deal mostly with mainland sightings
There are hundreds of them, sadly while some sound plausible enough the quality of many is on the whole incredibly low to puerile, as far as I can see any dog, fox, quoll or kangaroo that the witnesses can't immediately recognise is labelled as a thylacine.

While this doesn’t diminish the credibility of any of the more accurate sounding sightings, it does show two things; firstly that thylacines have had enough of a cultural impact to make misidentification a serious issue, this is also especially true of Tasmania,second that many of the so called large number of sightings don’t stand up to even passing scrutiny.

Reading these sightings a theme which often emerges is that the witnesses report noting that the animal has an unusual gait, sometimes saying it resembles an injured dog.

Also it seems that there are more sites on the net that deal with mainland sightings than those made in Tasmania. I can’t help being reminded of the man beast myths of the 20th century being moved over from Asia to the U.S where there’s more custom, and less scrutiny.

In my opinion the only place worth considering is Tasmania, given the lack of an Aboriginal tradition about thylacines on the mainland, except one possible exception from Victoria mentioned by Paddle, and the fact that there is no evidence that the often wished for relocation to Gippsland ever happened.

The State Government's secret Tasmanian tiger files have been prised open, revealing a sighting considered as credible as one 20 years ago that sparked a massive search. Details of 17 claimed thylacine sightings reported to authorities since June 1997 has been released to a self-proclaimed big cat and thylacine hunter under the Freedom Of Information Act.
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Of these 17 sightings 15 are reproduced here;

http://www.underdownunder.com.au/tassietiger.html

If this is a representative sample of the quality it’s almost no better than the mainland. Eight give descriptions which contraindicate a thylacine, and five are too vague to mean anything. Crucially though, especially because of their location, two seem to be extremely likely. Frustratingly though they’re from the late 1990’s.
 
oldrover said:
Of these 17 sightings 15 are reproduced here;

http://www.underdownunder.com.au/tassietiger.html

If this is a representative sample of the quality it’s almost no better than the mainland. Eight give descriptions which contraindicate a thylacine, and five are too vague to mean anything. Crucially though, especially because of their location, two seem to be extremely likely. Frustratingly though they’re from the late 1990’s.
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In my eyes, it looks like a compendium of encounters with mysterious creatures. Similar for example to many reported by Mary S. Godfrey, from the Skinwalker Ranch, or described in the FT 278 article "The ABC X-Files" (available here : http://www.forteantimes.com/features/ar ... files.html ). Often somewhat canid or felid, but definitely unidentifiable.

A small question : often, confusions with dogs are put forward, but are there striped dogs ?
 
Yes there are, my own dog was striped. She was a Greyhound Alsatian cross and exactly on the upper size limit given for thylacines. And because of her breeding she was deep chested with a thin abdo, I can well understand someone confusing her for one (not here in Wales obviously).

Also there's this from Carnivouras Nights, it's an excerpt from an interview with a conservationist and major thylacine researcher from the 70's now turned Senator.


It was a sighting Bob made himself that permanently altered his perception-and Jeremy’s as well. Bob was driving home one night through a wooded area and saw a startling vision in the headlights. “Here was this animal. I immediately went back to get Jeremy, and I said, ‘you’ve got to see this.’ We went right to the spot, and the animal was still there. I got it in the headlights, and it was extraordinary. It had pointed ears and a long snout. It had a thick rump and a Kangaroo-like tail and four chocolate-coloured stripes across its fawn-coloured back .
“And this is the thing. It was a greyhound dog that had the pattern and colouring of a thylacine.”
 
Author reveals ‘Tasmanian tiger' spotting

Thylacine seeker Col Bailey claims he saw the dog-like marsupial standing just metres away from him in southwest Tasmania's rugged bushland on an expedition in 1995.

"I was trembling like a leaf. It was surreal. I had no idea how I would react,'' Mr Bailey, 75, said.

He said the officially-extinct carnivore appeared while he was camping in Weld Valley and he followed it beyond a cluster of ferns.

"It was about 15 feet away and it turned and looked at me for several seconds, then backed away,'' he said.

Mr Bailey said it stopped and looked at him a second time before it disappeared into the scrub.

He claimed that while he had brought a camera, he left it in his pack, and therefore couldn't provide definitive proof.

"I certainly haven't got the acid proof, which is a pity because the thing's certainly out there, it's not extinct at all,'' he said.
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http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-n ... 6338916095

Interesting story. Now we know what he meant.

Don't quite now what the hell this means though

Recent research by University of Melbourne researchers also suggests the poor genetic diversity of the animals contributed to its isolation from the mainland.
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