oldrover
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2009
- Messages
- 4,056
Hi Paul and welcome to the forum.
I agree that it's extinct in Australia and Tasmania. Australia I think was always a bit of nonsense, despite what Paddle says about a South Australian bounty scheme in the 1800's. Tasmania while you can't be 100% sure they're gone you can be about 99.9% certain. As for New Guinea it's certainly possible that they still survive. People often point out that they weren't rain forest creatures so the majority of the habitat there wouldn't be suitable, this tends to ignore that fact that nobody seems to have told the thylacines this as we know for certain that they were living there. Also the last few captures during the 30's were made in the heavily forested areas of S.W Tasmania.
All of this said though, as has been pointed out wild dogs have been in New Guinea longer than Australia. So as someone who believes that competition with dogs was the main mechanism of their extinction, I wouldn't put their chances of surviving there as being any higher than anywhere else.
As you may guess from the pessimistic tone of this post, I already do.
I agree that it's extinct in Australia and Tasmania. Australia I think was always a bit of nonsense, despite what Paddle says about a South Australian bounty scheme in the 1800's. Tasmania while you can't be 100% sure they're gone you can be about 99.9% certain. As for New Guinea it's certainly possible that they still survive. People often point out that they weren't rain forest creatures so the majority of the habitat there wouldn't be suitable, this tends to ignore that fact that nobody seems to have told the thylacines this as we know for certain that they were living there. Also the last few captures during the 30's were made in the heavily forested areas of S.W Tasmania.
All of this said though, as has been pointed out wild dogs have been in New Guinea longer than Australia. So as someone who believes that competition with dogs was the main mechanism of their extinction, I wouldn't put their chances of surviving there as being any higher than anywhere else.
we may as well dimiss from consideration every man-beast, lake monster and prehistoric reptile described by natives and modern explorers
As you may guess from the pessimistic tone of this post, I already do.