The Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine) - Alive And Well?

reply to post by DaMod


The first few looked like a wild boar.

But as they go on, it does look very canine.

It would be easier to say what it was if we could see the markings (or lack of) on it's back.

Nice find though.

I'm still looking for the Emmerichs photos from 2005, but by the looks of it his legal team has had them completely removed from the net. Talk about trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Originally posted by DaMod
I did find this image if anyone is interested. Looks pretty good to me.



Source

It looks a lot like a Hyena or Aardwolf

Hyena

www.sheppardsoftware.com...

Aardwolf

www.bushveld.co.za...

and

www.affordableafricanhunting.co.za...

Originally posted by 2theC
yes
they are here ( i am in Tassie)

i have had around 20 different storys from the people who have actually seen and or heard the thylacine and on top of that, i am 99% sure that i have experienced their strange cry/howl/yap near my house, twice. Both times at the same time of year and both times my dog became very anxious and growled, which for her ( a lovely fat lab) is way, way out of character. I had the hairs on my neck stand up as i could hear 'her' ( i am assuming) making her way up the creek bed about a km from my house.
( by the way, a farmer was shooting wallabies several years before in the same area and had one in his spotlight. before he could finish his philosophical thoughts on shooting it, so people believed him, or not it was gone!)

i have heard so many story's from people of all ages that have seen them.
the funny thing is they tell you, but quietly.
Here in Tasmania if you have seen, one you are careful who you tell. People are scared to be called crazy. You can be ostracized in your community if you go about telling everyone what you have seen, so you only tell the people who you know will believe you.
There are so many sightings which never, never see the light of day.
On top of that there are so many sightings which are reported but never revealed because of sinister intentions.
its sad, the Thylacine seems to be the silent meat in a sandwich of a battle here that has been raging for decades.

Why do we not hear more ?
There is a conspiracy here...i am sure. I will maybe start a thread about later...

[edit on 12-6-2009 by 2theC]

Hi 2theC

First - thanks to all who mentioned and linked to Where Light Meets Dark - much appreciated. Although I have not actively updated the site in several months, I have started a Facebook page - http://(link tracking not allowed)/fb-wlmd

hi,

does anyone know how this Thyclacine broke its front leg?

Originally posted by fooffstarr
The Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine) - Alive And Well?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c38cc36d8f17.jpg[/atsimg]
Arkive.com

hi,

does anyone know how this Thyclacine broke its front leg? Its broken and healed front leg would of affected its movement.

i lived on the west coast of tasmania half my life and until a couple years ago had been deer hunting in tasmania over the year ( now anti hunting s.. i have been in some rugged country where roo shooters genrally do not go and have never seen anything that would make me think they still exhist. but thats only my personel veiw. i sure hope they do and there would have to be a small chance one would think that there may be some small numbers around tasmania and the mainland even.


J

...beautiful critters... hope theres still some out there...

...silly question time, lol... i'm not an aussie, never been there - but - i've long been fascinated with parts of it (ayers rock, aboriginal stories, poisonous snake population)... i've often wondered if the snake population has increased since the thylacine was exterminated... i've never read that snake was on their diet plan - but - (shrug) still wonder if that has a connection...

i realy doubt that csiro would tell you if their would tell you
look at this video it looks like it www.youtube.com...

reply to post by Versa


I'm guessing, however I would think it’s possibly due to a gunshot wound. These poor creatures were hunted mercilessly.

I refuse to believe they are extinct. To say that hunters chasing the bounty on offer wiped every single one form Tasmania’s rugged bush seems pretty much impossible. Trekking through there is hard work and there are plenty of nooks and crannies where they could have been missed.

In South Australia I remember a strong, concerted effort to remove all Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes), which were introduced by early settlers from England in order to be able to continue their hunts over here. At one stage (this is going back many years to when I was a child), fur buyers were offering good money for clean, good quality skins. I remember my father being angry because he tore one whilst skinning it. "That’s $20-$30.00 we just lost" he said. Twenty to thirty dollars was a lot of money back then.

Also, considering you could bag a dozen in one night it was pretty popular for farmers to subsidise flagging incomes (and also to attempt to protect young lambs), by "spotlighting" at night. They were hunted for years. Dogs were trained to attack them on sight. I recall lying in my bed at night in a rural area and hearing gunshots all around. It was like a war zone! I'm amazed to this day that there weren't any accidental shootings.

Yet we still have many, many foxes here.

reply to post by heffo7


My grandfather told me about a big black cat, very long tail (panther size too) and coming face to face with it, with his Dad. They did a lot of shooting back then, in NSW, no they didn't shoot at it, but it gave them quite a fright.
He told me this story 30 years ago. Their theory was they were animals set free from old Carnivale' /circus shows when tough times hit.
I believed him.
I also think it's highly likely the Tasmanian Tiger still exists in Tasmania, so why not elsewhere in Australia? It's a huge place with vast open spaces.
A few old farmer boys still tell their stories about their own hunting trips down in Tassie, and are convinced they've seen them too.
s & f op interesting topic
seriously though if someone finds one alive it should be left alone.

I used to live near the Grampians in Victoria. There was a Cougar who many people had seen through a certain time period.

Apparently it was a mascot from an American Air force group based here that was either "released" (accidently / purposefully), or had escaped.

The issue with these things (and by things I mean extinctions of large mammals) is that you don't just need one to be alive... you need a breeding population. At this point there would need to have been at least a handful of them around when we *thought* that they were extinct for a population to still be around. And even assuming that is true, the species would have totally bottlenecked and could have had some major genetic inbreeding issues.

If there were a couple that survived in that huge expanse of land, that doesn't mean that any are alive today. And even if one or two old ones are staggering around (lifespan is 8 years, by the way, marsupials don't live long) that by no means says that the species is good to go.

reply to post by ravenshadow13


I've trekked through this area extensively. Although I've never seen one, I don't have a problem believing there could be a reasonable population there.

All of the photos we have seen have been along roadsides or near public camping areas. Maybe one or two may stray that far towards civilisation; however I tend to think of them as hoaxes. The real area I believe they are surviving in is rough, inhospitably country requiring days of trekking to access.

Hi,
Im from tassie, i live in the bush, and for those that "believe" that these animals can not exist, well, where i live there is bushland that is practically inaccessible, unless you want to get dropped off by a helicopter lol.

Here's a kicker, about 15 years ago an uncle of mine previously lived up bush (back end of the NW coast) he hand fed a female, atleast twice a week for about 4 months, even had a polaroid at one stage.

I hold the Tasmania Tiger close to my heart, as an Aussie it's nice to have an animal that "may be" still out there.

I've got friends who used to live in Tasmania, and have told stories about seeing things they weren't sure what they were. Probably something mundane, but it's nice to dream.

Originally posted by Versa
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c38cc36d8f17.jpg[/atsimg]
hi,

does anyone know how this Thyclacine broke its front leg? Its broken and healed front leg would of affected its movement.

Honestly it looks to me like a wound sustained by getting its foreleg caught in some form of snap trap.[Small version of a bear trap] Then after capture it healed with a fair amount of scar tissue and bone growth.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/31b03d40b746.jpg[/atsimg]



On a personal note: I hope there are still some out there that have survived and are living freely the way they were meant to.

This article was posted on the bbc website a couple of days ago. Apparently the Tasmanian Tiger's jaws weren't strong enough to kill adult sheep...

Tasmanian tiger's jaws were too weak to kill sheep

At the end of the 19th Century, the thylacine had a price on its head.

The strange marsupial carnivore, which became extinct in 1936, was thought to kill sheep. Sheep farming was the backbone of the Australian economy, and the government duly set up a bounty scheme to exterminate the species.

But a new study has now revealed that the marsupial carnivore's jaws were too weak to snare a struggling adult sheep.

Article here

reply to post by lapzod


I read that article. Very interesting. It's funny how people are so quick to say "Gee, that looks like a dog, dogs sometimes eat sheep, so this must eat sheep too!"

@Slayer - Good eye, that's exactly what it seems to be.

reply to post by ravenshadow13


What I found interesting was this comment

"They would need to hunt a lot of small animals to survive," explained lead researcher Marie Attard from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney.

I know that on the mainland we have a decentish rabbit problem, because the Europeans brought them over. Maybe Tasmania didn't get them, or it wasn't enough

reply to post by lapzod


There were plenty of small native animals available to them.

Wallabies, birds and possums would have been a big part of their diet.