Following on from an earlier post, I'm starting a new thread because in some tiny way I can't help feeling that something has actually been achieved.
A few weeks ago I came across this photo on a German forum;
http://s1170.photobucket.com/albums/r53 ... ephoto.jpg
I PM'ed it to a couple of regular posters here to see what they thought. I must admit at first I thought the animal in it was dead and realised that, as it was a captive, if that was right then it'd make the picture quite rare, and possibly significant. One of those I posted it to correctly recognised that it was a live animal, but I wasn't sure so I also sent it off to the only thylacine expert I knew how t contact. I'll not say who as in their e-mails back there are short statements that make it very clear they like privacy.
The reply I got told me that the photo was rare and was probably taken in the early 1900's sometime before 1910, it was believed to be of a female known to be have been kept in London Zoo at that time. There is another rarely seen photo of what was believed to be the same animal in the same surroundings.
A few days ago I came across this old documentary on the Photographic Archive at London Zoo, which featured the photo and its back story. On the film it was stated that rather than being another albeit rather rare twentieth century photo, it was in fact taken in 1864 and is the only known photo of a living thylacine dating from the 19th C. The photographer was given as being Frank Haes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... EZmrJTIw0Q
Thinking that he might be interested I passed the documentary on to the other chap. After seeing the documentary he replied, it turns out that based on the info in the film he’s realised that it is in fact not only the first photo of a thylacine ever recorded, but one that was not reckoned to still exist. That Haes had taken the photo was well known but it had been believed to have been lost years ago. Up until yesterday it had been thought that the earliest photo still in existence was this famous image taken in 1869.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_hC30sWZ-gmw/R ... 69TMAG.jpg
Obviously the archives at London Zoo know that the photo was Haes’s and its age, but I’m not sure they know it’s the first ever taken. Certainly, and quite understandably being so similar to another set of shots, the photo wasn't recognised for what it was by at least some other thylacine experts, even though the image itself had been well known to them for years.