Spate of Tasmanian tiger sightings reported

[Still Waters]

At least eight sightings of Tasmanian tigers have been reported recently, reviving speculation the mammal is not extinct, as scientists insist.

The reported sightings are contained in a document from Tasmania's Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE). It said there have been eight sightings reported in the past three years.

Scientists declared the thylacine, a large striped carnivore that looks like a cross between a wolf, a fox, and a large cat, extinct after the last known live animal died in captivity in 1936.

Stories abound that the creature continues to exist in the remote wilds of Tasmania, but there has been no hard evidence to support this - only claims of sightings like the ones newly released.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/tasmanian-tiger-new-report-lists-recent-sightings-of-extinct-thylacine/3e261cd8-c54b-4033-96ba-d9491787e934

https://dpipwe.tas.gov.au/Documents/RTI 025 - 2019-20.pdf

[Habitat]

Given the ubiquity of phone cameras, one has to be sceptical. The value of a picture would be immense.

[Matt221]

36 minutes ago, Habitat said:

Given the ubiquity of phone cameras, one has to be sceptical. The value of a picture would be immense.

It proves one thing ..... I'm not the only one who never takes their phone with them lol

[the13bats]

A sighting could be a very brief second or two, enough a person thinks it's what they believe it to be but still they could be sincere and mistaken,

While i too ask of proof or pictures it would be hard to nap one if the encounter only lasts a second or two,

Of course when someone like in the bigfoot thread claim multi witness for several minutes, no excuse for not having several pics if of course your cam is on you.

While i believe its possible a few tigers survived there hasn't been any proof to support it.

[openozy]

A lot that boo-hoos sightings probably haven't experienced the remote wilderness of Tassie or even the Great Dividing Range here on the mainland,where I believe the thylacine may still exist.Like the mongoose seen on my property,a population released over a hundred years ago to control snakes and rabbits,thought to have died out but still exist here.You could spend a lifetime trekking these areas and see nothing or go camping once and get a glimpse of something rare and thought extinct.

[ThereWeAreThen]

Please please please PLEASE BE TRUE!!!!

[Jon the frog]

Don't know why they never find thylacine tracks on the side of the road with these sighting ? Easy to stop or go back to the sighting area to search for it. Or people just wait to much before saying that they have seen a thylacine?

[oldrover]

Two responses in my experience when people realise you're in Tasmania in connection with the thylacine, one is to let you know how much they personally regret the extinction, the other is to tell you about the time they or someone they know saw one. Both mean well. Probably just like the people who made these reports, but a couple of them seem to amount to 'don't know what I saw, but it's Tasmania so it's a tiger'. 

31 minutes ago, Jon the frog said:

Don't know why they never find thylacine tracks on the side of the road with these sighting ? Easy to stop or go back to the sighting area to search for it. Or people just wait to much before saying that they have seen a thylacine?

One of these Jon is about a footprint, I'm not sure if it's mentioned at the link though. 

Redacted sighted a foot print on the walk up to sleeping beauty (Mountain River side). Redacted wasn’t able to take a photo however he googled it when he got home and believes it was a Tasmanian Tiger footprint.

Truth is I doubt it'd be easy to find a print, many of these are on gravel roads with dry twigs, leaves, mulch bits of bark etc on the verges. And even if they did it wouldn't prove anything. I know this because there are prints accepted as thylacine, but a friend of mine has had copies of a foot made. He's one of the goodies and used it as a means of comparison, but if he can do it so can somebody else. Believe me there are a lot of shysters out there, so it wouldn't mean much.

 

[Jon the frog]

2 hours ago, oldrover said:

Truth is I doubt it'd be easy to find a print, many of these are on gravel roads with dry twigs, leaves, mulch bits of bark etc on the verges. And even if they did it wouldn't prove anything. 

 

It's just that if it's a true sighting...if use dogs you can follow the track to get more proof.  These sighting, true or false, are really dim proof...i would definitively search like a mad man for a track if i would see one... or maybe one.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Jon the frog

[openozy]

42 minutes ago, Jon the frog said:

It's just that if it's a true sighting...if use dogs you can follow the track to get more proof.  These sighting, true or false, are really dim proof...i would definitively search like a mad man for a track if i would see one... or maybe one.

That would work if you could train a dog to run thylacine exclusively,but with no hides or scat to train them and crossing tracks of Tassie devils,quolls it would be impossible.On the mainland they imported trained cat hunting dogs from the US (coonhounds mainly) when there were sightings of big cats,to no avail as far as I know.The coonhound blood has found it's way now into pig dog lines here now.Also dogs are not permitted in national parks here.

[openozy]

2 hours ago, oldrover said:

one is to let you know how much they personally regret the extinction,

Hopefully they never forget this,a nice gesture but it doesn't mean much to say sorry after you mean to shoot someone dead.

Edited October 17, 2019 by openozy

[Earl.Of.Trumps]

Eerily similar to sightings of the black panther in North Carolina, and then later, 4 or 5 middle states.

[Nnicolette]

I've been saying this. It's kind of silly to assume something is extinct and treat sightings like cryptozoology reports just because the minute remaining population avoids interaction with humans. Not exactly hard to figure out.

[Night Walker]

5 hours ago, oldrover said:

Two responses in my experience when people realise you're in Tasmania in connection with the thylacine, one is to let you know how much they personally regret the extinction, the other is to tell you about the time they or someone they know saw one. Both mean well. Probably just like the people who made these reports, but a couple of them seem to amount to 'don't know what I saw, but it's Tasmania so it's a tiger'. 

The thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian tiger, is a marsupial that suffered a government-sanctioned massacre leading to its extinction in 1936. The thylacine’s status as a hidden animal has inspired what folklorists call “ostensive practice”; people not only actively seek out the thylacine in the wilderness of Tasmania today and share their sightings online, but they have also incorporated the thylacine as a symbol of hope and perseverance into various forms of folk art.

...

Keeping the thylacine alive through the creation of folk art and legend-tripping search parties helps thylacine enthusiasts cope with the guilt for having lost an ecologically important animal due directly to ignorance and financial gain. If the thylacine is resurrected, whether literally or figuratively, people can symbolically undo some of the damage they have caused the natural world. Thus, the vernacular resurrection of the thylacine, understood through a folklorist lens, offers a model for comparing some of the vernacular ways that people are presently dealing with the general loss of wildlife due to climate change.

Thylacine Dreams: The Vernacular Resurrection of an Extinct Marsupial by Daisy M. Ahlstone, Utah State University

[openozy]

9 minutes ago, Night Walker said:

helps thylacine enthusiasts cope with the guilt for having lost an ecologically important animal due directly to ignorance and financial gain.

And they are doing the same now with roos,although still common,with the drought the farmers have open slather with these.How long until the combination of drought and slaughter wipes these out ?

[oldrover]

4 hours ago, Jon the frog said:

It's just that if it's a true sighting...if use dogs you can follow the track to get more proof.  These sighting, true or false, are really dim proof...i would definitively search like a mad man for a track if i would see one... or maybe one.

And 

 

15 minutes ago, Night Walker said:

The thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian tiger, is a marsupial that suffered a government-sanctioned massacre leading to its extinction in 1936. The thylacine’s status as a hidden animal has inspired what folklorists call “ostensive practice”; people not only actively seek out the thylacine in the wilderness of Tasmania today and share their sightings online, but they have also incorporated the thylacine as a symbol of hope and perseverance into various forms of folk art.

...

Keeping the thylacine alive through the creation of folk art and legend-tripping search parties helps thylacine enthusiasts cope with the guilt for having lost an ecologically important animal due directly to ignorance and financial gain. If the thylacine is resurrected, whether literally or figuratively, people can symbolically undo some of the damage they have caused the natural world. Thus, the vernacular resurrection of the thylacine, understood through a folklorist lens, offers a model for comparing some of the vernacular ways that people are presently dealing with the general loss of wildlife due to climate change.

Thylacine Dreams: The Vernacular Resurrection of an Extinct Marsupial by Daisy M. Ahlstone, Utah State University

It's a funny old game down there in my very limited experience. Part of what Daisy says in her thesis, and part this strange and totally unrealistic 'of course they're there why would I even bother to look' sort of attitude. 

[papageorge1]

Sounds like they might be overpopulated if there's a spate of sightings.

Edited October 18, 2019 by papageorge1

[Habitat]

People report seeing the Thylacine in places it wasn't found when still in existence, which is doubly confounding.

[openozy]

It could be the drought,we are getting a lot of deer on our place atm where usually they are a rare visitor.Wild animals seem to lose their fear when desperate for feed or water.

[Grim Reaper 6]

18 hours ago, Still Waters said:

At least eight sightings of Tasmanian tigers have been reported recently, reviving speculation the mammal is not extinct, as scientists insist.

The reported sightings are contained in a document from Tasmania's Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE). It said there have been eight sightings reported in the past three years.

Scientists declared the thylacine, a large striped carnivore that looks like a cross between a wolf, a fox, and a large cat, extinct after the last known live animal died in captivity in 1936.

Stories abound that the creature continues to exist in the remote wilds of Tasmania, but there has been no hard evidence to support this - only claims of sightings like the ones newly released.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/tasmanian-tiger-new-report-lists-recent-sightings-of-extinct-thylacine/3e261cd8-c54b-4033-96ba-d9491787e934

https://dpipwe.tas.gov.au/Documents/RTI 025 - 2019-20.pdf

These reports have been going on since 1936. It would be wonderful if Thylacine did still exist, because that means there would have to be a breeding population. But until they capture one on film or a live one it's very hard to beleive that they have made a come back.

JIMO

[+DieChecker]

So if a farmer shot one, would he be a hero, or a villain, or both?

It would be nice, if true.

[Horta]

It's quite plausible though getting more unlikely as time goes on.

The more the sightings mount up and the longer this goes on without verification, it actually makes it less likely that they exist. Though I did see a critter once that was thought extirpated on an entire continent for 50 yrs (and has since been changed back to a "threatened" species), so I can sympathise with the people who saw it (if they did in fact see it).

[oldrover]

1 hour ago, Horta said:

It's quite plausible though getting more unlikely as time goes on.

I wouldn't agree with the quite plausible part. Thylacines were almost exclusively taken in traps intended for fur. As the number of traps rose so did the number of tigers presented for bounty (roughly 50% increase after 1899). This went on till 1905 then there was a crash, followed by a decline. 

After the end of the Government bounty scheme in 1908 (not 1909) there were very few thylacines taken despite an increase in the number of traps. 

By the 1920s duty was paid on 700'000 to a 1,000,000 animals a year and not more than about 10 or so contemporary records exist for live thylacines captues.  Despite the high value one would have had for the trapper. 

There are three contemporary records of a live thylacine in the wild in the 1930s. All from 1930. 

 

[Horta]

21 minutes ago, oldrover said:

I wouldn't agree with the quite plausible part.

 

Fair enough. I  meant plausible as in, it was a real creature that existed. Not a nessie or a bigfoot.

[Habitat]

39 minutes ago, oldrover said:

By the 1920s duty was paid on 700'000 to a 1,000,000 animals a year

Seriously ? As a predator at the top of the food chain, surely the numbers were nothing like that.