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All I'm doing is (reporting) adding to the "data base" of sightings of the TT.

I'm not suggesting you're doing anything else. I'm giving my opinion on the wording of the article, which I feel entitled to do as I'm one of the three whose work it's based on.
 
I feel that the humble mossie is our defining answer to the question of whether the Thylacine is still living.

Has any body seen wallabies in their natural habitat - especially the Swampy - just lossicking around?

I have had the opportunity, and when they reside in their normal woodland, the mossies come out and plague them utterly.

The Thylacine's normal habitat during the day is, from what i can gather, bush, rather than grassland, and where ever there is bush there is water...and mosquito.

So gather ye rosebuds where you may, and where ever there has been a sighting, go and trap local mossies and search there gut for Thylacine DNA.

I reckon that this is the only way to confirm The Question, sans a body.

(my apologies if I'm repeating myself)
 
I feel that the humble mossie is our defining answer to the question of whether the Thylacine is still living. ...

That's an interesting notion. However ... It would require fairly rapid collection and analysis of the mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes digest the blood they suck from mammals, and there's a limit to how long the ingested DNA remains "intact" (to any degree).

Some 2017 research in Japan determined that human DNA was still capable of being analyzed to identify the donor after up to 2 days in the mosquito's gut, but all the DNA had disintegrated beyond the point of recognition after circa 3 days.

https://phys.org/news/2017-07-forensic-scientists-recover-human-dna.html
 
That's an interesting notion. However ... It would require fairly rapid collection and analysis of the mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes digest the blood they suck from mammals, and there's a limit to how long the ingested DNA remains "intact" (to any degree).

Some 2017 research in Japan determined that human DNA was still capable of being analyzed to identify the donor after up to 2 days in the mosquito's gut, but all the DNA had disintegrated beyond the point of recognition after circa 3 days.

https://phys.org/news/2017-07-forensic-scientists-recover-human-dna.html

Thank You EG, My notion was a totally uneducated guess that sort of, made sense.

Maybe we should accumulate data on specific/predominant areas of Tasmanian Thylacine sightings and sample Mossies in those areas anyway.

Might be worth a shot....As Con, the Fruiterer would say - Coupla days! bewdiful!
 
You really need to ask first if there are any viable sightings. And you need a very objective knowledge base to make that assessment. I'm not suggesting anyone here doesn't, but I am saying that in my opinion all but about 3 of the accounts that I've ever heard demonstrate that the witnesses probably didn't.
 
Animals are predictable - similarly to humans.

Rabbits defecate in the one spot - something with elevation. Dogs like their favourite spot that has the right shade and soil. Grazing animals will come back to young tender pick time after time. Wombats defecate at the boundaries of their territory. Larger animals have their scratching posts.

They all have their territories that are specifically bounded by another mob, or mated pair, so, where there are thylacine sightings, use this to place mosquito pheromone traps.

I can see a study being done here, with the actual goal being the verification of Thylacine DNA found in the GIT of a mosquito.

Here's a map of sightings in Tasmania between 1938 and 1980 (I won't consider mainland sightings).

Thylacine sightings in Tasmania between 1938 and 1980..jpg
 
Couple wee thoughts..

Could an animal this size remain hidden for so long? (Although, I suppose the amount of sightings suggests it hasn't been hiding at all!)

I was thinking about me and my wife's experiences with Foxes in Scotland.

They are apparantly very common where I live (Angus.) , although I'm not aware of any Urban ones.

However, on average I see ONE fox a year! , and I am out in the countryside a lot, and drive 12,000 a year to and from work.

My wife has seen ONE fox in her entire life! (for two seconds, from a train)

Discounting Urban foxes,(which we can, as the Thylacine doesnt/didnt live in peoples gardens), how often do other members see wild foxes?

Best comparable example I can think of!
 
Animals are predictable - similarly to humans.

Rabbits defecate in the one spot - something with elevation. Dogs like their favourite spot that has the right shade and soil. Grazing animals will come back to young tender pick time after time. Wombats defecate at the boundaries of their territory. Larger animals have their scratching posts.

They all have their territories that are specifically bounded by another mob, or mated pair, so, where there are thylacine sightings, use this to place mosquito pheromone traps.

I can see a study being done here, with the actual goal being the verification of Thylacine DNA found in the GIT of a mosquito.

Here's a map of sightings in Tasmania between 1938 and 1980 (I won't consider mainland sightings).

View attachment 26839

Surely it would be possible to flood that northeastern area with trail cameras? The high-end ones will even run off solar panels, or for months on batteries, and automatically transmit images back to one’s computer or mobile phone.

maximus otter
 
About that map. Firstly you need to know what those little dots represent. It's not really valid to look at numbers or locations of sightings unless you establish what criteria are used to classify them as such. To get an idea I'd Look at the FOI requests which would presumably contribute to the numbers above, but at any rate are fairly typical of 'tiger sightings'. If they were related without any context, date or location, how often would 'thylacine' be offered as a possible candidate.

Also, it'd be necessary to look at how plausible some of them are. Here are a couple of genuine examples, though not verbatim they haven't been altered. I saw it cross the paddock, between about 400 to 600m away, I know what I saw. Another; When I was six my father and my brothers saw an animal they couldn't identify, when they came home they got me to draw it. I've always been very good at drawing, it can only have been a thylacine.

That's not to say there aren't also high quality sightings, there are but very few. And one stands out way ahead of the rest.

But assuming the dots represent sightings of animal which do correspond to a thylacine, and were made at a reasonable distance. Except for the NW the sightings the dots correspond very well to human settlements. Big clusters around Launceston and Scottsdale. The last place we know thylacines existed was in the SW and NW, indicating if the NE sightings are valid, tigers have reclaimed practically all of their former range. Does this sound likely? Tasmania isn't a crypto theme park, it's an island with very significant and very threatened indigenous and in some cases endemic wildlife. Aside from the unknown number of trail cameras out looking for tigers, there's also a lot of cameras and researchers out there monitoring the sate of other species. In light of DFTD, most especially devils.

The NW then, where there's a lower concentration of sightings despite being a far more plausible area. That's not necessarily a problem in itself as this area is far less populated, so there will be far less opportunity for witnesses to be in the right place at the right time. But it'd have to be established whether there's a difference between the sightings in the NW and NE. If there isn't a very defensible suggestion would be that people will see tigers, regardless of whether there are any to see, and the numbers of sightings correspond only to the numbers of people present.
 
About that map. Firstly you need to know what those little dots represent. It's not really valid to look at numbers or locations of sightings unless you establish what criteria are used to classify them as such. To get an idea I'd Look at the FOI requests which would presumably contribute to the numbers above, but at any rate are fairly typical of 'tiger sightings'. If they were related without any context, date or location, how often would 'thylacine' be offered as a possible candidate.

Also, it'd be necessary to look at how plausible some of them are. Here are a couple of genuine examples, though not verbatim they haven't been altered. I saw it cross the paddock, between about 400 to 600m away, I know what I saw. Another; When I was six my father and my brothers saw an animal they couldn't identify, when they came home they got me to draw it. I've always been very good at drawing, it can only have been a thylacine.

That's not to say there aren't also high quality sightings, there are but very few. And one stands out way ahead of the rest.

But assuming the dots represent sightings of animal which do correspond to a thylacine, and were made at a reasonable distance. Except for the NW the sightings the dots correspond very well to human settlements. Big clusters around Launceston and Scottsdale. The last place we know thylacines existed was in the SW and NW, indicating if the NE sightings are valid, tigers have reclaimed practically all of their former range. Does this sound likely? Tasmania isn't a crypto theme park, it's an island with very significant and very threatened indigenous and in some cases endemic wildlife. Aside from the unknown number of trail cameras out looking for tigers, there's also a lot of cameras and researchers out there monitoring the sate of other species. In light of DFTD, most especially devils.

The NW then, where there's a lower concentration of sightings despite being a far more plausible area. That's not necessarily a problem in itself as this area is far less populated, so there will be far less opportunity for witnesses to be in the right place at the right time. But it'd have to be established whether there's a difference between the sightings in the NW and NE. If there isn't a very defensible suggestion would be that people will see tigers, regardless of whether there are any to see, and the numbers of sightings correspond only to the numbers of people present.

I will disagree with you here Olrdrover, mainly, because we're talking about Thylacinus cynocephalus, and seeing something that either is, or isn't a thylacine deserves investigation.

I saw a large lean, feline looking quadruped as a 14 year old on my Parents property, observing it through a rifle scope for four minutes or so, as it climbed a gully, up to thick scrub. I have no idea what it was, but I knew that it shouldn't have been where it was. 53 years later, I'd still like to know what it was I saw

Your post is spot on and I can't fault what you're saying - it just wouldn't hurt to set out pheromone traps and check them every 24 hours - if only two of those sightings out of the 100 plus that have been noted actually are a Thylacine.

I'm sure that there are undergraduates who would leap at the chance.
 
Tasmanian wolf re-discovered? We will have to wait and see. Stuff like this has fallen trough before.

I'm a little skeptical but at the same time hopeful. From what I've read elsewhere, others are stating that the sighting is actually of a pademelon/s, a small wallaby like marsupial. Time will tell.
 
Early reports are suggesting that the 'baby's is a Patemelon.......knew it was too good to be true.
 
Tasmanian wolf re-discovered? We will have to wait and see. Stuff like this has fallen trough before.

Wildlife expert pours cold water on claims Tasmanian tiger family spotted

Tue 23 Feb 2021 06.42 GMT


A wildlife expert has dismissed claims of a sighting of the extinct Tasmanian tiger, declaring the animals photographed were most likely pademelons.

Devotees of the extinct Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, were abuzz this week with the potential new discovery that, if confirmed would have brought the animal back from the dead.

The Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia, an amateur not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the elusive creature, claimed it had photographic evidence of three thylacines living happily in north-east Tasmania.

In a video posted to YouTube, the group’s president, Neil Waters, said a camera trap had captured photos of a family of three thylacines, including a baby, which was “proof of breeding”.
But Nick Mooney, honorary curator of vertebrate zoology at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery reviewed and assessed the material provided by Waters.

In a statement, TMAG said Mooney had “concluded that based on the physical characteristics shown in the photos provided, the animals are very unlikely to be thylacines, and most likely Tasmanian pademelons”.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ater-on-claims-tasmanian-tiger-family-spotted

maximus otter
 
Wildlife expert pours cold water on claims Tasmanian tiger family spotted

Tue 23 Feb 2021 06.42 GMT


A wildlife expert has dismissed claims of a sighting of the extinct Tasmanian tiger, declaring the animals photographed were most likely pademelons.

Devotees of the extinct Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, were abuzz this week with the potential new discovery that, if confirmed would have brought the animal back from the dead.

The Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia, an amateur not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the elusive creature, claimed it had photographic evidence of three thylacines living happily in north-east Tasmania.

In a video posted to YouTube, the group’s president, Neil Waters, said a camera trap had captured photos of a family of three thylacines, including a baby, which was “proof of breeding”.
But Nick Mooney, honorary curator of vertebrate zoology at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery reviewed and assessed the material provided by Waters.

In a statement, TMAG said Mooney had “concluded that based on the physical characteristics shown in the photos provided, the animals are very unlikely to be thylacines, and most likely Tasmanian pademelons”.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ater-on-claims-tasmanian-tiger-family-spotted

maximus otter
Still, he got his monetisation clicks from Google so thats OK.
 
Could you (or anybody) provide some background on this jolly chap and his group for the non-experts here?

I'm struggling to know where to start. If I say though that there's been a sweepstake going to guess which species it would be this time it gives you some idea of how reliable he's considered. In my opinion, and I'm not alone, this man's exploits are nothing to do with thylacines and are about something internal.
 
I'm struggling to know where to start. If I say though that there's been a sweepstake going to guess which species it would be this time it gives you some idea of how reliable he's considered. In my opinion, and I'm not alone, this man's exploits are nothing to do with thylacines and are about something internal.
If as stated the animals photographed are indeed pademelons then either they are the worst photographs ever taken - in the blobsquatch territory - or Neil Waters and Co are absolutely terrible naturalists / biologists.
 
If as stated the animals photographed are indeed pademelons then either they are the worst photographs ever taken - in the blobsquatch territory - or Neil Waters and Co are absolutely terrible naturalists / biologists.

Well, the fox photos were clearly foxes, the Alsatian was clearly an Alsatian, and the wallaby was clearly a wallaby. So I'm not sure it's his skills as a naturalist that's the immediate problem.
 
The area he took the photos in is not wilderness. N.E. Tasmania is mostly cultivated farm land. I focus the west of the island.
 
The area he took the photos in is not wilderness. N.E. Tasmania is mostly cultivated farm land. I focus the west of the island.

As Tony Healy and Paul Cropper point out in their book Out of the Shadows the Thylacine was always more plentiful in the north-east of Tasmania, they are/were not forest animals.
 
Mr Waters, and his followers, are so earnest to claim evidence of the Tasmanian Thylacine, that their judgement does get clouded.

I followed his postings for a short while but decided to cut out when my opinion of an Adelaide suburbian 'Ole Stripey', was met with all sorts of strong opinions about my breeding...or lack of.

That's all I'm saying.
 
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