Guys,
What I am basically saying is this ..! You may be sceptical on this footage, which I indeed myself find unclear, unsteady and quite possibly not a wild animal at all. However, Too many reports of purported thylacine sightings, both in Tassie and mainland Australia. I am not advocating for unprofessional people to investigate these claims more seriously, I am suggesting the Parks and Wildlife Service do this properly and consistently.
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jelle - i personally don't hold "sightings" even be them in large quantities as very substantial proof of an animals existance.
firstly, think of how many people in the US report bigfoot sightings... and this is a creature of pure fantasy.
secondly, most people we have established don't know a hippo from a rhino, let alone a thylacine from a dog. its especially confusing when, in such as in the thylacines case, the animal in question is so often innacurately represented. most books still illustrate the thylacine as a tan wolf with a few stripes thrown down its back.
thirdly, if most of the sightings in tasmania are to be believed, then it implies the animals are not THAT uncommon. if thats the case, how come nobody has come accross ANY substantial proof of the animals existance in recent times? thylacines are not ghosts. they are real animals.
and lastly, thylacines were extirpated in a relatively short period of time, with relative ease by farmers who feared they would prey on their stock. that to me suggests two things...
a) that the animals lived in close contact with the areas being settled (which was open woodlands that could be cleared easily, not old growth rainforest) and....
b) that the animals were not exceptionally inconspicuous, at least not in any way like they are made out to be today.
basically - thylacines never lived in deep rainforest. if so, they would never have gone extinct. i can't imagine that the early european settlers went off on month-long explorations into the dangerous terrain of the tasmanian wilderness just to protect their sheep. that wouldn't have benifited them and they would never have needed to. instead like all farmers they protected their farmland and surrounding areas. unfortunately for the thylacines. the farmers settled virtually every single patch of their habitat. thus giving them knowhere to escape. thylacines were not distributed throught the entirety of tasmania at all....
and lastly. mainland sighting are in no way credible in my opinion. australia may be a damn big continenet with very little people, but once again, most of it is not thylacine habitat. the areas that are, mostly along the eastern coast, have been colonised for over 200 years now and nobody has ever shot a thylacine (either with a bullet or a camera). the very good reason for this is becuse for the last few thousand years, australia has been inhabited by wild dogs brought to the mainland by asian fishermen. these dogs actively outcompeted and possibly hunted, in packs, mainland australias two largest carnivores from existance. there are no dingoes in tasmania, which explains why devils and thylacines survived there much longer.
so you have to remember. its dubious enough wether or not there are thylacines in tasmania after just a few decades of persecution. now imagine what the odds are like for a mainland thylacine - persecuted for centuries...
on funding a search - parks and wildife have searched for the thylacine, virtually everyone has - and found nothing. likewise, i find it hard to believe this has something to do with protecting the loggers (indeed like i said, most scientific evidence suggests the forests are not their habitat anyway) instead it has an aweful lot to do with the fact that most good science suggests searching for a living thylacine will be a futile effort.
put it this way, can you imagine how big the news would be if a living "tiger" was found alive? can you imagine how much international interest in tasmania it would provide? should an effective ressurection of the species follow, can you imagine how much tourism would follow?
i personally don't believe, neither the tasmanian, nor australian federal government, would find opposition to pouring millions into thylacine conservation should one be found alive. the interest both in australia and around the world would be far, far too high to risk damaging our international image over. it would be move aside giant panda, heres a real animal with a profile akin to the loch ness monster.
unfortunatly jelle, being a "tiger believer" is somewhat of a religion for some people, just the way searching for bigfoot is. it was a sad feeling when, after reading enough books on the subject that i found my better judgement over-rode my desire to belive their may still be some of these animals alive today.
but nontheless, i think animals are animals and if people are smart enough to manage to exterpate them, then i think we are smart enough to discover them should we look hard enough. and people have looked long and hard for the thylacine.
but naturally, this is one time when i would love, more that anything else, to be proven wrong.
