Thylacine Article

MRJ said:
Re devils, this has been suggested a number of times, and an excellent case has been put to place them on Wilsons Prom. However the Tasmanian government are totally against it, as far as they are concerned the devil is "theirs". I doubt it will ever happen.
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I suspected as much. And unsurprising... we see this the world over such as with the Gujarati's and "their" lions. From a legal standpoint though - does the Tasmanian government really have a say here? Do they own all the captive devils?

MRJ said:
Re numbats, they are obligate termite eaters, and require immense quantities on a daily basis. Perth Zoo, who have run an excellent breeding program over a number of years, had to establish a 'termite farm" out in the bush to supply their needs. I think it was a 400km round trip to service the farm.
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I assume they do not eat a substitute food then? Or at least fail to thrive on it? I wonder how Healesville have fed the animal they kept recently (oddly) in the nocturnal house? Anyways I digress.
 
Shurley the devils in American and European zoos don't have anything to do with the Tasmanian government. Perhaps those animals would be good candidates for reintroduction?
 
birdsandbats said:
Shurley the devils in American and European zoos don't have anything to do with the Tasmanian government. Perhaps those animals would be good candidates for reintroduction?
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I don't think there are enough of them outside of Australia / Tasmania to by use for reintroduction efforts and I would suspect that the zoos would rather keep them.
 
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birdsandbats said:
Shurley the devils in American and European zoos don't have anything to do with the Tasmanian government. Perhaps those animals would be good candidates for reintroduction?
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All the OS devils animals from the breeding program in Australia. So I can't see how the political situation with them wouldn't be any different. I might have just answered my own question posed earlier to MRJ here, but it might be less about ownership of the devils and more about the Tasmanian gov just pressuring the Dept of Environment not to approve mainland releases.

Also, and I could be wrong about this, but my understanding is that all the overseas devils are pretty much retirees. Australia happily sends older devils to the US, Europe and NZ zoos because it frees up needed space for the next generation of younger animals in the breeding program. I recall they only breed for one or two years and then are pretty much post-reproductive. But i'm guessing they kick on for longer than they would in the wild with all the luxuries of captivity, creating a lot of older surplus devils. Have there been any births over in the US? if not, that might support this.
 
MRJ said:
Nothing to do about conservation, it is about tourism.
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A sorry state, right?!

Knowing how the state of Tasmania lost its thylacines by active Govt. eradication programs, one would think that in the case of the Tasmanian devil they deserve a more robust support structure than just a tourism lobby. If the Tassie devils would go extinct one can only blame this short-sighted all out development policy on Tasmania and the lacklustre conservation ethic for its environment. I do not think this notion (of conservation ethic ruling Tasmanian devil policy) is naive, it is the powers that be that seem to deconstruct its place in reality.
 
toothlessjaws said:
I suspected as much. And unsurprising... we see this the world over such as with the Gujarati's and "their" lions. From a legal standpoint though - does the Tasmanian government really have a say here? Do they own all the captive devils?
Click to expand...

birdsandbats said:
Shurley the devils in American and European zoos don't have anything to do with the Tasmanian government. Perhaps those animals would be good candidates for reintroduction?
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When we took on devils we had to sign a document acknowledging they belonged to the Tasmanian government. I see no reason zoos overseas would not have to do likewise.
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
I agree and that was my point with the word proprietorial.

Do you think that the fact that the devil is a tourist attraction that draws in capital to the island could somehow positively impact their conservation in Tasmania ?
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I think the Tasmanian and Federal governments are well aware of the importance of the devil. That is why it is subject to the largest and most expensive conservation project aimed at a singe species in Australia ever.
 
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toothlessjaws said:
I assume they do not eat a substitute food then? Or at least fail to thrive on it? I wonder how Healesville have fed the animal they kept recently (oddly) in the nocturnal house? Anyways I digress.
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I am not aware of any substitute. Healesville would have had to arrange a constant supply of termites, not impossible but expensive, and no doubt the reason there was only one of them.
 
MRJ said:
I think the Tasmanian and Federal governments are well aware of the importance of the devil. That is why it is subject to the largest and most expensive conservation project aimed at a singe species in Australia ever.
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Well I suppose there are some big benefits of it being a species that is seen as a tourist draw to Tasmania.

The Bramble Cay melomys and the Christmas Island pipistrelle bat unfortunately had no such luck.
 
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A new study has come out in January 2021 stating that the thylacine died out as late as 1998, not 1936 as people previously believed, based on 1,237 separate sightings, with 429 of those verified sightings being from experts.

Dog-like predator with kangaroo pouch, believed extinct since 1930s, possibly lived till 2000s

Also a new sighting from SA with a man describing what he saw as a "mother with 2 young darting 6-10km away."

New sighting of a thylacine, a thought-to-be-extinct carnivorous marsupial | Boing Boing
 
Smaggledagle said:
A new study has come out in January 2021 stating that the thylacine died out as late as 1998, not 1936 as people previously believed, based on 1,237 separate sightings, with 429 of those verified sightings being from experts.

Dog-like predator with kangaroo pouch, believed extinct since 1930s, possibly lived till 2000s

Also a new sighting from SA with a man describing what he saw as a "mother with 2 young darting 6-10km away."

New sighting of a thylacine, a thought-to-be-extinct carnivorous marsupial | Boing Boing
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If these sightings are verified why don't we know about them? :rolleyes:
 
Smaggledagle said:
Also a new sighting from SA with a man describing what he saw as a "mother with 2 young darting 6-10km away."

New sighting of a thylacine, a thought-to-be-extinct carnivorous marsupial | Boing Boing
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6-10 metres not km. The story sounds like absolute nonsense.


Smaggledagle said:
A new study has come out in January 2021 stating that the thylacine died out as late as 1998, not 1936 as people previously believed, based on 1,237 separate sightings, with 429 of those verified sightings being from experts.

Dog-like predator with kangaroo pouch, believed extinct since 1930s, possibly lived till 2000s
Click to expand...
birdsandbats said:
If these sightings are verified why don't we know about them? :rolleyes:
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The study is here: Extinction of the Thylacine

It is a pre-print, entirely un peer-reviewed and looks like a lot of hand-waving. It says all sightings after 1939 are considered "unverified" (which is as it should be) but from that they have constructed an extinction date of 1998?
 
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