"Extinct" Tasmanian Tiger seen? 2 Articles

'Tassie Tiger' caught on film


By Margaretta Pos
February 27, 2005
From: The Sunday Tasmanian


A GERMAN visitor to Tasmania has taken several photographs of what appears to be a Tasmanian tiger.

The man's brother was in Hobart last week and showed the digital images to staff at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

He also showed them to Parks and Wildlife Service officers.

The shots were taken recently in the Lake St Clair region.

However, the German visitor did not leave any images for further study.

He has since left for Melbourne.

Last night TMAG marketing manager Peter West said the museum was unable to comment about the veracity of the images.

"All I can say is that the German was here last week," Mr West said.

"He was the brother of a visitor who took the photographs. There were images of a tiger in several of them.

"But the museum is not in a position to confirm whether they really are of a tiger.

"All I can say is that the photographs were brought to us. We don't have them and cannot comment about them."

The Tasmanian tiger is generally believed to be extinct.

The last tiger in the Hobart Zoo died in 1936.

Since then, there have been many reported sightings, but none has been verified.

Recently, a major project to clone a tiger at the Australian Museum in Sydney was axed because the DNA sample to be used was not good enough.

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Tiger riddle grows


By Danny Rose
February 28, 2005

MYSTERIOUS photographs at the centre of the latest Tasmanian tiger sightings contain a thylacine, experts agree.

Two senior Tasmanian figures who were asked to inspect the photographs last week agree - the blurry and partially obscured animal shown is unmistakably a thylacine.

The photographs included the distinctive stripes Tasmanian tigers were renowned for, the pair said yesterday.

It now comes down to whether the images, snapped by a digital camera, can be proven to be authentic.

The senior figures are Department of Primary Industries Nature Conservation Branch wildlife biologist Nick Mooney and Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery director Bill Bleathman.

They viewed the two photographs at the request of a Victorian man last week.

Mr Mooney has investigated hundreds of thylacine sightings.

It is claimed the pictures were taken by the Victorian man's brother, described only as a tourist from Germany, who was bushwalking in remote wilderness near Lake St Clair during recent weeks.

"I had an extensive look at the pictures," Mr Mooney said.

"It is clearly more likely a thylacine than any other animal, but the authenticity of the picture does pose some issues."

The photographs were not copied before they were taken back to Victoria.

But Mr Mooney and Mr Bleathman gave a detailed account of the images yesterday as they said an investigation would continue.

The pictures were described as:

# "Out of focus" or motion-blurred, attributed to possible excitement at the discovery.

# Showing an animal disappearing into bush about 20m away from the photographer.

# The animal was mostly obscured except for part of its back, which appeared to show a Tasmanian tiger's distinctive stripes.

# Parts of the head and tail were partially visible through the bushes.

"They showed the back of a thylacine but its head, hindquarters and tail were not clearly visible," Mr Bleathman said.

"We are always interested in these sightings because we have the world's experts on thylacines here, and we investigate all sightings to the best of our ability.

"We looked at the photographs and determined it was inconclusive. I'm not saying it's a hoax."

He said the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery received up to 10 thylacine sightings a year, but the latest was "the first one claiming to have a colour picture".

It is a harder task to authenticate a digital picture, which can be easily manipulated using computer programs, than an image snapped by a conventional camera.

It is understood the images are in the possession of Melbourne newspaper The Age, but they had not been published yesterday.

Tasmanian tigers are generally considered to have become extinct in the wild about 1933, when the last wild thylacine was caught in the Florentine Valley.

The last known Tasmanian tiger died in Hobart's former zoo in 1936.

Mr Mooney said yesterday it was possible the species could have remained undiscovered, living in small pockets in Tasmania's most remote wilderness, as it was resilient to in-breeding.

"It is possible but I think it is against the odds ... I'm open-minded," he said.

Premier Paul Lennon said more study of the images was needed.

"Obviously if their sighting can be authenticated then it would be great news for Tasmania," Mr Lennon said.


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Great find. It goes with the topic of trying to clone the tasmanian devil. I could almost swear there was a topic about it on ATS. But here's a site about cloning the (once thought?) extinct animal.

www.buzzle.com...

Got any links to the photo's, would love to see them. From what i have read there has been sightings all over parts of Austraila. Hopefully the Tiger did survive in isolated places, in the rainforest's. Cool find though.

That's just awesome to hear that the Thylacine may not be as extinct as we thought. Now if some protection laws can be out into place, perhaps they can be bred back into abundance on Tasmania.

That would be the greatest find since the cure for Polio.

Nice find, I hope it's true, I have heard about a few sightings, although none could be substantiated. I would like to see the series be bred so they can populate Tasmania.

Originally posted by Jay
Got any links to the photo's, would love to see them. From what i have read there has been sightings all over parts of Austraila. Hopefully the Tiger did survive in isolated places, in the rainforest's. Cool find though.

Check out this video:
www.tased.edu.au...

I live in Tas an this is great that there maybe tigers hiding in the forests. The places that there talking about are completly isolated from man. These forests are HUGE. Most of the west coast is dense forests, its really full on in there and bushwalkers are always going missing and getting lost.
I believe there are tigers here somewhere, there has to be.

But, saying that, people began saying that there are foxs here in tassie, provided photos (photos that later turned out to be fake) so the Tas gov spent millions to elimanite the foxs using a kind of methods including 1080 poison. Now the Tasmanian Devil population is being wiped out by an unknown and rare cancer which spreads over there face, its ugly.

If there are tigers out there i'm prayin for them because the next few years are going to be tough for them.

Here´s an interesting article from BBC:

BBC: Hunting Tasmania's extinct 'tiger'

Last Updated: Sunday, 29 May, 2005, 12:38 GMT

• The thylacine was a large marsupial carnivore
  
• It ranged widely from Papua New Guinea to Tasmania
  
• Many scientists doubt cloning technology can bring it back

Australia's leading news magazine, The Bulletin, is offering a $1m reward to anyone who can photograph a tiger and prove that the species still survives.

"It is quite possible that pockets of tigers have survived. They would be very hard to spot, and they are most likely in areas that are almost impossible for humans to reach. There may well be valleys out in the bush where small colonies are still hiding out."

Tasmania does contain a huge expanse of wilderness. There is hope for the tiger.

Several apparently credible witnesses have claimed to have seen them in recent years.

Click the link to read the full article...

I think that it's very likely that small populations of these creatures still survive in Australia. I hope that they can be preserved and hopefully spread.

me too......its been so long since any some what recent reports have surfaced.

Well, first the Thylacine is not a crypto beast, second, watch out, the area will be firebombed soon. What am I talking about?

You see, in Tasmania, the government is just like the republican party, owned by big business. In Tasmania's case it is the foresting companies. WHat happens is someone comes in a reports a Thylacine, the foresting company then goes and firebombs the area. Why? Because if any endangered species is in the area, they can't forest it, so if a Thylacine is proven, they will be stopped from foresting. So they firebomb any area that a Thylacine is reported to make sure they can keep foresting.

[edit on 2-6-2005 by James the Lesser]

I wonder if they tried to preserve the remains of the last one when it died, despite a lack of tecknology in 36, you would think so. Does anyone have any solid information regards this? Any documents etc?

There is a new book that just came out on this topic: "Carnivorous Nights : On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger" by Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson.

I heard it could open its mouth 180 degrees is that true?


Any more pic of the Tazmanian tiger or wolf

reply to post by James the Lesser


with firebombing and 1080 posioning it looks grim for the remaining thylacines...hopefully someone will be able to prove its existence to the newspapers, instead of the government which appears to be covering up all reported evidence it encounters. a crying shame what greed can do!

Ive mentioned this before in another Tassie Tiger related thread a while back.

The CSIRO here in Victoria DOES have a small population of Tassie Tigers living and breeding in a secret location in Victoria. I spoke to somebody through my local hunting club branch who had a close friend in the csiro. This same friend also confirmed to him the existance of black panthers roaming the Victorian high country.

Now, you dont have to beleive me and I would not blame you one bit for theres are alot of false claims on ATS that are made but just keep it in the back of yoiur mind.