what is this (tasmainian tiger)???

yeah I think they are all gone but never say never. Just a shame that last one we have on video wasn't from later years when technology was more advanced. We may have been able to extract dna and bring them back.
As for the "puma" my old lady swears by the fact while travelling through victoria her and my dad watched a massive black cat run across the road and stop then into the bushes. When they came to a rest stop and told the clerk about it he told them it was a common sighting.

P.s as a side note for the fella that said about the ranger telling him theres a small pocket of tigers that they are closely watching. Dont you find it a bit odd that if they were watching them so closely they would hardly want them trotting across a main highway where traffic is so bad people like yourself cant stop. Seems strange right?

Well I'm from north-west Tassie and I haven't come across one yet. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised considering their extinct

One possible reason for their demise is because of their supposedly voracious appetite for sheep, so farmers wiped them out.

Hows this for an idea, deploy sheep equipped with gps and video gear into the wilderness and see what happens

Btw, it's good to see some awareness on the Tasmanian Devil deadly facial tumour disease. New York socialites join drive to save Tasmanian Devil
Can't wait to see Jungle Jack Hanna's doco on this

Well just look at how long it took to get proof that foxes were active in Tas after many years of sporadic sightings. Back in the 70s a New Zealand bird, the Takahe, which was presumed extinct for a very long time was actually discovered living in a remote part of the south island.

So there's still a faint hope if you consider the size of the preserved areas like the southwest, Tarkine, Douglas Apsley, Styx & Florentine valleys that only get the odd bushwalker passing through. There's been a few surveys using baits with IR cameras but they turned up nothing.

I quite agree, however they are technically extinct until proven otherwise.

While there is that faint hope, one just hopes that if man does make contact that it won't be with a gun. Perhaps it would be safer for them if they don't get discovered, assuming they survived for the past 70 odd years. Also iirc, Tassie Tigers were famous for suffering post capture shock...

even though they have a slim chance to survive, they could make it,they could.

so they're called tasmanian tigers? they kind of looked like canines, not felines.

reply to post by sherpa


There exists footage of the tiger supposedly taken in (I think) the early 70's out there somewhere. Do a search for thylacine on Youtube - it should show up. Looks pretty convincing too.

Ahhh...found it:

www.youtube.com...

And here's another fascinating one:

www.youtube.com...

One more - not as convincing, but odd. Dingo??:

www.youtube.com...

J.

[edit on 20-4-2008 by jimbo999]

[edit on 20-4-2008 by jimbo999]

[edit on 20-4-2008 by jimbo999]

Kind of looks convincing?
Lol there is no doubt to any australian that the tassie tiger is real and that footage was takin in a zoo. It was the last known living one and we havn't found one since. But there definately real and so is the footage.

If you watch that old footage from the zoo, something really stood out to me. In that short video, that animal behaved JUST LIKE a dog. The way it moved and the way it ate was very, very canine. But it's a marsupial. Weird.

It would be interesting to observe them in the wild (or even in captivity for that matter), and get a better view of their behavior.

The best description of them is marsupial wolf and it's the stripes that got them the 'tiger' name. They're definitely closer to canines in their movements and check the size of their jaw opening. They were hunted to extinction after being accused (probably wrongly in retrospect) of taking sheep and lambs prompting the government to place a bounty on them.

I believe they were more scavengers like their cousins, the tasmanian devils.

It would seem there are quite a few videos of fox's and dingo's that are suffering from chronic Sarcoptic Mange.

This infestation by a spider like mite will eventually cause hair loss so makes these animals look very different.

Of course one of the first things people think when they see these is, Tassie, unfortunately this is not the case but does tend to muddy the waters a bit when people talk of sightings.

That said I still live in hope though.

They're still very large in the public psyche here

Here's a label from a most excellent local beverage

Originally posted by MrRobarto
Kind of looks convincing?
Lol there is no doubt to any australian that the tassie tiger is real and that footage was takin in a zoo. It was the last known living one and we havn't found one since. But there definately real and so is the footage.

WHICH footage are you refering to? I didn't post any 'zoo footage' as far as I know... All the footage I posted is shot in wilderness/countryside settings.

My understanding of the official 'last footage', (the footage in the zoo) is that it is B&W and silent? None of my video links is either B&W OR silent. Do you even bother looking at the footage??

J.



[edit on 23-4-2008 by jimbo999]

reply to post by sherpa


Hmmm...possibly true. Although I didn't know mange could make a creatures jaw massively elongate though. You can clearly see in video 2 that the mystery animal has a huge elongated jaw. Or that's certainly how it looks anyhow..

J.

reply to post by jimbo999




I agree with you. The body is to stocky for a fox or dingo to even talk about let alone include mange in it,The nose is rounded and the tail is quite thick. Its relation to them is similar but there is to many influences from the look for me to say its a fox or a dingo.

Tassy tiger? mayhaps.

Originally posted by jimbo999
reply to post by sherpa

 

Hmmm...possibly true. Although I didn't know mange could make a creatures jaw massively elongate though. You can clearly see in video 2 that the mystery animal has a huge elongated jaw. Or that's certainly how it looks anyhow..

J.

Yes I can see what your saying, but as always the quality of the video on youtube is hideous and I can't make any decisions on that sample.

I would dearly like to see the original footage in the hope that it was better quality.

Provenance would be equally important like where was this taken by whom and with what equipment.

I confess I have not spent much time at all researching any claims with these videos so cannot speak with any authority on there accuracy.

It might be worthwhile adding this is not my thread, the original post and poster has dissapeared, I have no idea why.

That being said I am quite happy to talk about Tassie I just have not done any in depth research.

Regards

sherpa

Gday people, I am from Gippsland in Victoria, Australia and have been within
30 foot of a Thyalicine.or Tassie Tiger. It was in the bush close to a very small town named Koonwarra. I have seen this creature a couple of times and was even able to show one to my wife in 1988. Although I hadn't mentioned it to people, when I showed it to my wife she told everyone she could and surprise surprise they were saying oh don't be stupid we all know they are extinct and any way they were in Tasmania. Well that is what they said until the local paper mentioned two weeks later that there had been so many sightings in the area that a group of scientists from all over the world were about to turn up to investigate, then they at least were able to contemplate the possibility that it still exists.
Now I am new to ATS, and this is the first comment I have made on the site, but I can tell you one thing, honesty is more important to me than anything else, and I have seen Thyalicine with my own eyes, I have also seen the large black cats in the same area and many people see them on a regular basis, well at least people that get out into the paddocks and pockets of bush in the area.