Thylacines (Tasmanian Tiger / Wolf): Misc.

Well I've just driven a week on the East Coast and inland of Tassie - sadly, not one Thyalicine in sight - not that I really expected to see one.

But I for one believe they are still out there - because they are my favourite "extinct" animal and I want them to be out there.

Good luck - you certainly have my vote!
 
Just wondering if you included any plans to check the mainland, where there have been sightings of thylacines over the years? Of course, a wild population would have to have survived since the arrival of the dingo some 20-40 thousand years ago without being found in that time. Then again, an eccentric millionaire could have taken some to his homestead in Victoria as part of a private zoo...

Yeah, probably better to stick to Tasmania.
 
I think you'd have a better chance of catching a Yowie than a Thyalicine on the main land! :lol:
 
I think you'd have a better chance of catching a Yowie than a Thyalicine on the main land
Click to expand...

Actually a lot of the most promising sightings have come from the mainland. I think there is a suggestion that thylacines may have been released in Wilson's Promontory in Victoria in the late 19th century... although of course how they might have survived last year's bush fires there is another matter. :(

And wasn't a dead thylacine found in a cave in (?) WA a few years ago?
 
There was, but it turned out to be 3000+ years old, but really well preserved just like the sloth skin in Patagonia.
 
Ah, I hadn't heard that - that's a real shame. I think the last thing I read suggested that it might be more recent.
 
Another shame is when you see eye witnesses interviewed who sound really impressive, then you see foot casts and they only have 4 toes. The only time I've seen it done right was the paws photo of the Thylacine supposedly accidentally shot in the 90's, shown once on one of the myriad documentaries I've seen. Be nice to know if that was ever disproved.
 
The tazzie wolf has been see by a park ranger and a zoologist. Of all the cryptids most likley to exist (and i think there are quite a few that do) this has to be number one.
 
Who was the zoologist, and when was it. I know about Hans Naarding in 1982. Another reliable sighting would be wonderful
 
That Park Ranger sighting happened in 1995 - I remember seeing the guy on TV calmly stating that he'd seen one. Then a day or so later, he and some "higher uppers" held a press conference denying that he'd seen one and saying that he was now convinced that is wasn't a tiger.

The press grilled him a bit further and they said something to the effect that even if they'd seen one, they wouldn't say so as not to attract some hunters after the ultimate trophy.

My guess is that at least some park rangers know that they are still out there, but won't say where so as not to endanger them. If true, it's a good thing, IMO.
 
Quake42 said:
Actually a lot of the most promising sightings have come from the mainland. I think there is a suggestion that thylacines may have been released in Wilson's Promontory in Victoria in the late 19th century... although of course how they might have survived last year's bush fires there is another matter. :(
Click to expand...

I looked a bit more into that and you have a point there.

Here's a link to a story from 2003 from the SMH - quite interesting. I wonder if these sightings are still happening?

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/ ... 65660.html
 
Thing is if the Thylacine was rediscovered it would be such a high profile boost for the Tasmanian wildlife authorities/conservation lobbies, that it would be hard to imagine them suppressing any information relating to it.
 
Hans Naarding was whome i was refering to. I still think this is the best sighting of a cryptid ever.
I actualy think that the thylacine is more elusive than endangered. I think there may be far more thylacines around that Javan rhinos for example.
When under heavy persecution only the most wary would have survived. It was man made 'natural selection'.
 
I definitely agree on the first and last points, and hope for the second. But I want to ask you as someone who knows, if anything ever came of those paw photos.
 
As far as i know nothing ever did. It seems as if every time what seems like good evidence is uncovered then it seems to vaish or be forgotten about. Case in point the 6 foot long cat shot in Australia that turned out to be a feral. None of the scientists involved seemed to be intrested in following it up.
 
lordmongrove said:
As far as i know nothing ever did. It seems as if every time what seems like good evidence is uncovered then it seems to vaish or be forgotten about. Case in point the 6 foot long cat shot in Australia that turned out to be a feral. None of the scientists involved seemed to be intrested in following it up.
Click to expand...

Why would they though? It was just a bloody big feral cat (which is exactly what I think the "Penrith Panther is, but that's a different story).

The question is for me, if someone had hard evidence of a living Tassie Tiger, would it be hushed up or made public? I really don't know.
 
If anyone had definite evidence of the Thylacine of course it'd be made very public, why wouldn't they it's such a high profile case. Christ knows how much WWWF and any other sort of funding they'd receive, plus tourism revenue it'd be economic and environmental suicide not to.
 
Most of my information on this subject, from fascinating book, IMO highly recommendable: “Carnivorous Nights”, by Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson (publ. 2005). Two American naturalists, long highly interested in the thylacine, who made a long visit to Tasmania about 2004, to look into the mystery of the creature’s possible continued existence. Travelled widely around the island and met many thylacine researchers / “believers”. Their conclusion, which I tend to be persuaded to share, is that (with great sadness) they reckon it probable that – at least in the sense of a straightforward relict population -- the animal does not survive. So many reported sightings, right up to the present day, but next to no supporting physical evidence. And according to the authors, Tasmania’s remaining forests are being ravaged by reckless logging; bad news habitat-wise, but one would think, in the short term, with some likelihood of uncovering surviving thylacines – but that seems not to have happened.

I have some inclination to put down continued sightings, to perhaps something spectral / paranormal going on (and would see that as going in spades, for sightings on the mainland) – a “take” which many would ridicule, but “so be it”. The book’s authors – who certainly don’t come across as weirdos – do not completely rule out paranormal explanations for the phenomenon.
 
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, as you say, without ridicule. While I would agree with you that the lack of physical evidence is very worrying as is the fact that sometimes it tends to contradict the sightings, I dont think either is conclusive.

One thing you can be sure of though is that the two authors of the book you mention are not credible naturalists (within the scientific community where all the funding and the scrutiny is) as to mention or even entertain a paranormal explanation would have been instant professional suicide, which they would have known so it indicates they had no current or any prospective careers to worry about.
looks like I was wrong about the last part
 
I was using the word “naturalist” in its wider application, including amateur same. I get the impression (lack the time right now, to explore further) that the authors of the book concerned are indeed not professionals in the biology / natural history field, with all that that entails – it would seem rather, that they earn their livings as writers / journalists, and can thus better afford to entertain eccentric / heretical notions natural-history-wise, than if they had academic careers in the scientific community.

It appears to me from the book that these two are, in their natural history interest, mostly on the mainstream scientific page (and widely knowledgeable about same); but are willing to leave the door open a crack – or perhaps a bit more – to other “takes”.

Any such willingness is indeed, as you observe, professional suicide if biological science is one’s career. This overall issue is one which at times gets quite rancorous, in the area of interest in and enquiry into, the matter of “Bigfoot” in North America. I tend to feel that mainstream science’s reaction re the paranormal is understandable, but none too admirable. Scientists ridicule the excesses of “religious establishments” in other times and places, in the matter of attempted enforcing of orthodox views, and stifling of speculation. They consider themselves far more enlightened – I sometimes wonder, with how much justification? Burning people at the stake is not an option these days; but I see at times, surprisingly much, same stuff, within the parameters of what is nowadays allowed, re “getting heavy with perceived heresy”. Being hypocritical, without realising it?
 
Any scientist worth their salt should be intrested in a feral domestic cat thats as big as a leopard!
As for the tazzy wolf, in my view the best places to search ate New Guinea and mainland Australia.
 
scientific dogma has to a large extent slotted nicely in where religious dogma once was, providing as it does not so much what to think but the context and way in which you think it. As well as you mention creating it's own heresies. Of course fashionable lines of thought, politics and economics colour what it does or doesn't deal with and how it interprets its results.

Despite that, personally I would like to see more rigour in this case. No more bloody dog casts, for example. I think that's the Thylacine's and the people who are besotted with it's best chance.

Do we have any more on this 6ft feral cat by the way.
 
One tends to suspect that many people have a big need of dogma in their lives...

Thylacines “up north”: there was a colourful character who for a while recently, posted on another crypto-interest site. He lived in the far north of Queensland, and was totally convinced of the (flesh-and-blood relict populations) survival in the forest fastnesses up there, of not only the thylacine, but the thylacoleo (marsupial lion-equivalent, per conventional wisdom died out 30K-odd years ago). He’d had no first-hand encounters, but claimed to have come across many accounts which he found compelling. This chap was by his own admission, fond of mind-altering substances – I’d suspect him of hitting too hard, the Bundaberg Rum, coupled with more-doubtfully-legal stuff...
 
I cant remember where I read this but originally the Queensland tiger cat was included in the official fauna lists, early reports didnt sound much like a a Thylacoleo though.
 
Bernard Heuvelmans’s “On the track of Unknown Animals” (1962) has a chapter – partly – on the “Queensland Marsupial Tiger”. Tells of many reports of such over the decades, chiefly from the very far north-east of Queensland – the Cape York Peninsula. General “word” therein, is of a striped cat-like carnivore, most usually reckoned the size of a large dog. Heuvelmans gives a passing mention to the Thylacoleo – he claims, around “until quite recently” [sic] – but reckons the “Queensland tiger” a different, and smaller, beast.

Heuvelmans indeed mentions the Northern Queensland “striped marsupial cat”, being included in the comprehensive book, published 1926, by A.S. Le Soeuf and H. Burrell: “The Wild Animals of Australasia, Embracing the Mammals of New Guinea and the Nearer Pacific Islands”.

The “poster elsewhere” whom I mentioned, said IIRC nothing about the “marsupial tiger” beastie –he was heavily beating the “thylacines and thylcacoleos still out there” drum. I suspect that a modestly big-ish cat-equivalent was too boring and plausible for him to bother with... Perhaps I’m unduly hard on this guy, but he struck me as an irritating buffoon and attention-seeker.
 
Meant to post this before. In 1996 the Atlanta Olympics closing ceremony finished being aired on BBC at 6am, after which a wild life documentary on Tasmania was scheduled, the information in the TV guide, cant remember the name, made particular mention that it included the ‘Tasmanian Wolf, until recently thought to be extinct’. Having read this I set all the alarm clocks I could find, set the video, and after a full day of work watched the entire ceremony through the night, in case the times were changed, or wrong or if the alarms didn’t wake me.

At 6 in the morning the ceremony finished and sure enough the documentary began, on desert reptiles.
 
How often one feels -- the great "leitmotiv" of anything involving matters cryptozoological is, for sure, frustration.
 
oldrover said:
Meant to post this before. In 1996 the Atlanta Olympics closing ceremony finished being aired on BBC at 6am, after which a wild life documentary on Tasmania was scheduled, the information in the TV guide, cant remember the name, made particular mention that it included the ‘Tasmanian Wolf, until recently thought to be extinct’. Having read this I set all the alarm clocks I could find, set the video, and after a full day of work watched the entire ceremony through the night, in case the times were changed, or wrong or if the alarms didn’t wake me.

At 6 in the morning the ceremony finished and sure enough the documentary began, on desert reptiles.
Click to expand...

1995 - Tasmanian Park Ranger confirms and then denies sighting
1996 - BBC axes on short notice doco on "until recently thought extinct Tasmanian Wolf"

I smell a conspiracy! :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top