thylacine documentary

[arca]

Some interesting stuff here. Looks to be from the 1980s-90s.

[arca]

at the 52:45 mark you can hear what is arguably a recording of a thylacine bark

[seth24]

that doco is called the tasmanian tiger, and is available on dvd, put out by winning post productions in tassie. can also be purchased from the tassie tiger bar. Also another short doco on the tiger i found on you tube, the complete version ( 28 mins),
is the X creatures programme- 'beyond the jaws of extinction',
by chris packham. includes a interview with col bailey, ned terry
and eric guiler. very good for the 28 min duration. ;D

[arca]

Excellent! Good to know the name.

Can someone who's been in the tassie bush listen to the supposed thylacine recording and let us know what you think? I'm really curious. For the record, I listened to a brushtail possum and a stag call for comparison, and neither sounded much like the one recorded.

[molloch]

I am currently in the Tarkine, in the NW corner of Tassie in the bush. But I haven't got the bandwidth to load youtube. Can anyone cut the "Thylacine" noises into an MP3 and upload it?

[seth24]

interesting on that supposed thylacine taping, that there's is a lot of conjector as to what noise the thylacine did make, to what has been recorded by witnesses, and to what has been
read about from the old trappers , and people who were around at the time of the thylacine. people have a descibed a yapping
sound or a yip yip sound, to a whoooo! sound. to me the sound
on the tape sounds more like a devil, altough the sound does seem to be from an animal of a good size. I t would make a good
debate on what other questors think what animal it is from, given that they have been in the tassie bush. there's one for
you chris and molloch and others. ;D

[exoldrover]

I've been put off posting anything on this site by the squalor that is the 'News and views' section. Thank you though to acra and seth24 for what you've posted here, I'm in your debt.

[youcantry]

exoldrover - interesting comment. What bothered you about the other forum, and what did you like about acra and seth24's postings here?

(For the record I reckon I look at the other forum less than once a year. For me, it's all about the Quest

And regarding the thylacine sound - yeah, it is interesting. I have a video, I think (could be audio) where a woman mimics a thylacine call, but I think she actually saw thylacines before 1936 - so I reckon her impersonation must be the closest we have to accurate (well, assuming she does a good job of it).

I was impressed by the impersonation in the film The Hunter.

[mingle]

Jan 24, 2013 10:55:11 GMT 10 exoldrover said:

I've been put off posting anything on this site by the squalor that is the 'News and views' section. Thank you though to acra and seth24 for what you've posted here, I'm in your debt.

I'm the same - news and views is something that put me off too. I really can't see it's value. If people need to vent their (often) one-eyed views, there are plenty of other like-minded people and forums which are far better suited to that sort of stuff.

The way I avoid it is to use this bookmark for the forum:

thylacoleo.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general

That way I come straight here and avoid the other dross.

Sorry to go OT...

Mike.

[seth24]

chris what actually does the sound, the women mimicked,
sound like, as your tassie bush experience/s,( monster quest
expedition), you probably did hear a range of animal noises at night in the bush. staying on that M.Q trek, there was also a
part of the trek where you blokes, came across a strong
'pundant' smell. what would your views on that smell be now.
as the tiger was renowned to give off a 'certain' smell, one being a likeness to 'rotting flesh. i don't know of any documented
articles of what the thylacine did actually smell like. Also whether
the thylacine did give off this same smell in captivity. Again we must rely on people who were around at a time when the thylacine was in abundance. I have to ask the qustion whether
the smell was strongest when the animal was disturbed or under threat. ( as in the case of n.american skunk) With the taped sound from the tasmanian tiger footage, the sound feels to me to be a "throaty" sound, like the devil. Anyway would be interested in questors views on this. ;D

[Deleted]

The sound the woman mimicked was a throaty HUH HUH.
I have had reports of thylacine tracking a roo and giving periodic YIP YIPs,
A late frind of mine was an ardent thylacine investigator and knew of a group in the NE corner of Tas. He had several sightings there and used to camp in the area. Before he got his tent up the word would be going out in the form of CHOP CHOP as jaws were being snapped together, an alarm.
He used to hang some dog cubes out and a thyla used to come to feed. It used to slosh through the creek, his jack russel would start growling and he would smell the pungent stink.
On departing it would growl back at the dog and go its way.
He used to decoy the thylas using the call of the wedge tailed eagle. The dog would alert him to the presence of a thyla and he would get a wiff of the stink.
I interpreted a lot of his field notes and typed them out.
I never kept copies but still have a lot of his field notes.
Regarding Thylas eating carrion, I set up a camera in vicinity of thyla den in Vic, using a roadkilled wombat for bait.
In those days I made up cameras using film cameras with an assortment of IR detectors and a wierd assortment of arms etc to connect the solenoid to the camera.
I wasted years of effort trying to get pics of Bigcats. When all oppotunities were lost. I discovered that the cat's acute hearing enabled it to hear and avoid the camera.
Appparently the thyla's hearing was likewise because after I removed the camera the wombat was predatored the same night. A small hole was made below the sternam and animal completely eviscerated.
Liver and lights, guts and tripe, they all come home in thin skins, as we used to sing in those far off schooldays, referring to the local butcher's sausages. This certainly was no bigcat.
They are still there, when you have developed instincts to match the thyla perhaps you will see them.
Bushcat

[lurcherman]

Posted by mingle on Today at 1:01am.

"The way I avoid it is to use this bookmark for the forum
thylacoleo.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general"

Very tongue in cheek there Mingle.

[Thylacoleo Gal]

;D Tales from the Dark Squalid Side, is it? ;D

Ahem, yes, well, there's a reason. Years ago the Quest's first forum folded because of all the spamming, OT stuff, stalking, bad language etc etc. Then I hit upon the idea of two boards: one for the "good stuff" like thylacines et al. And another one for, how shall we say ... the "other stuff". That way, I figured, I could just let'em all build up and, after a while, zap'em at my convenience.

If you don't have some sort of labour-saving system like that, you end up spending all your time censoring, deleting and adjudicating ... and that's a bad idea.

But then, after a while, I came to notice there are interesting ideas and news tid-bits that get posted in the Bad Board. Sometimes. Not always.

Besides, I'm basically against restraints on free speech: sounds trite but for "some unknown reason" I think of Hitler and the Commies whenever I think of the Greens and PC cluck-heads. Can't imagine why ...

So, yeah, I think the thing to remember about turkeys who have different views, even <gasp!> politically incorrect views of the world is ... they exist. So, uh, get over it?

D.

PS:
Of course, another small matter is that Google ads cover the upkeep of the Quest website: domain name reg, hosting, mainly. No traffic = no ad $$$s. Errm, not that the Quest is influenced in any way by squalid monetary considerations ...

And do y'know there is something else that I'm embarrassed to admit has given a certain Schadenfreude. People may have heard that the Monash Science Centre was closed down this month to make way for fee paying foreign students, apparently. I was a member of the Monash Science Club for many a year in my childhood, which club was run from said "MSC":
sciencecentre.monash.edu/

I started the Quest website whilst still a member. And now we find the Quest and its Thylacoleos and all that so called "fringe stuff" is still around ....

Didn't Rudyard Kipling voice a similar sentiment?

"If you can keep keep your head
When all about are losing theirs
And blaming it on you." ;D

And the moral in the story of MSC's unhappy fate?
Ignore reality at your peril.

[Deleted]

Recently I had to take a cousin to task for saying that he had a half - e? cast on his arm. I now learn that there is cast and caste.
He has his arm bandaged to a half CAST, made from plaster.
Still cant be too carefull.
BC

[youcantry]

Seth, in all honesty the smell part was dramatised. However I believe Col Bailey's report of having smelt the pungent smell is genuine. I remember that day though - we heard a ground parrot that morning, which was really cool. And we didn't hear too much wildlife at night either. There was one day where for a fleeting moment some animal ran across the track ahead of us. Michael was in front - I only got the barest of glimpses. Neither of us alone was sure what we saw but when we pieced the little bits of info together which we saw altogether - the gait, the colour, the tail - we decided it was a devil that ran across our track. Later (I kept cameras out for a year at the location we found our footprint), we collected lots of devil photos from that area. Incidentally, the majority opinion is that our footprint was a wombat's - but when we went back I had eyes wide open for wombat prints, saw plenty, and none looked like our print. I still think the footprint is the best piece of evidence we turned up. I agree it's not conclusive but I couldn't have asked for a better match with multiple authors' illustrations and even a taxidermy's plaster cast. Incidentally, I did have one museum staff member give the opinion that our print resembled thylacine more than wombat. Basically mixed opinions - Nick Mooney said wombat; Tigerman said wombat but near enough to what we're looking for in a tiger print (which I found a confusing response); Barbara Triggs said she couldn't pick between wombat or thylacine but if forced would choose wombat "without any certainty"; and one museum staff member (anonymous) said more likely thylacine than wombat.

To the regulars, apologies for re-posting this link, but for new readers, here is our print, a tracing of it and overlays of that tracing against book illustrations and the plaster cast (and a wombat book illustration for comparison):

www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.167856749908336.46653.129982173695794&type=3

[Isengard]

Jan 30, 2013 9:29:41 GMT 10 youcantry said:

There was one day where for a fleeting moment some animal ran across the track ahead of us. Michael was in front - I only got the barest of glimpses. Neither of us alone was sure what we saw but when we pieced the little bits of info together which we saw altogether - the gait, the colour, the tail - we decided it was a devil that ran across our track.

Chris, I have no personal experience of devils whatsoever, how large can they grow and is it possible to mistake one for a thylacine which I do have a sound idea of the size and colouration of? Please don't think I'm being critical, I'm just curious as to if it is possible to mistake the two species for one another. Best wishes!

[youcantry]

A tassie devil is about the size of a soccer ball. It's basically a dark brown to black colour. It has a peculiar running gait, but this is shared by quolls too and quite likely the tiger may have had a similar gait.

Tigers grew to large sizes. The longest on record is 2.9 metres from tip to tip, putting adult male thylacines in the same size range as adult female leopards.

That said, there would have been plenty of smaller tigers.

Here's a thought. The video in the original post here says that "fewer than four were sighted in the first 17 years of English settlement".

Surely thylacines would have been in the highest possible numbers at the time of English settlement - well at least much higher than if they persist today. I mean if the bounty claimed at least 2,000 skins, you'd have to reason there would have been at least 2,000 tigers in the state at the time of settlement. Further, I believe tigers were not hunted by Aboriginals, so they would also have had the least to fear from humans during those 17 years. But for explorers to record fewer than 4 in 17 years is quite a low rate of reporting don't you think?

Now consider this - if they do persist it's almost certainly in small numbers. You might argue the human population has exploded - but in regions of southwest Tas, has the *human* population really exploded? No, I don't think so. There is plenty of space that sees perhaps 4 people every second year.

Now you would have had a few hundred Europeans settling at both Hobart and Launceston and in 17 years with the tiger population likely to have been near carrying capacity for pre-European settlement, you get 4 reports.

Tell me how it's impossible the tiger might still persist in the southwest which sees an average of 2 humans per year, without undeniable sighting, for 75 years? And let's remember - there *have* been sightings down there, including the sighting of tracks in the decade post "extinction" date.

We'll never know if we never go. Someone has to get out there and spend some serious time in the south west. There's a particular region I have in mind - basically where the fewest humans go.

[youcantry]

At 7:14 you see a Tasmanian devil run. Notice how the tail is held out horizontally behind the animal without much flexibility. Compare to Doyle footage.

[youcantry]

Approx 7:20 Dr Menna Jones notes how dogs walk and run on their toes, while thylacines sometimes while walking would place entire foot on ground. Compare to Doyle footage. (We have no verified footage of a running thylacine).

[youcantry]

At 10:52 they say the thylacine was excluded from the south west, but Paddle cites 4 pre-extinction sightings from the south west, Bailey shares stories of thylacines interacting with humans in that region, Fleay collected post-extinction stories of activity there and the earliest searches in the late 1930s found tracks there. The fact remains the thylacine *was* in that region pre-extinction.

[youcantry]

About 12:00 it says Tasmanian Aboriginals hunted and ate thylacines. That contradicts what I thought was the case (and what I wrote here earlier today). I'll have to check where I got the impression they weren't hunted by Tasmanian Aboriginals, but I thought from Paddle's book.

[youcantry]

Guiler's book "Thylacine: The Tragedy of the Tasmanian Tiger" has this (pp 14-5):

"The early white settlers were busy keeping themselves alive and did not have much spare time for writing, and the few records we have now lead us to believe that in the early days thylacines were not numerous and were a matter for comment when seen. For example, Jeffreys (1820) stated that only four had been seen since settlement ... More thylacines would have been seen as exploration spread across the country but the point is made that thylacines were not by any means a common species.

"Evans (1822), then Surveyor-General of the colony, who lived in Tasmania from 1809 to 1824 and travelled extensively, owning properties in northern Tasmania, commented on the 'opposum hyena' and stated 'but a few of the latter have been seen'.

"Widowson (1829) gave some more distributional information when he said of the thylacine that 'it frequents the wilds of Van Diemen's Land and is scarcely heard of in located districts'. Mudie (1829) tells us that the thylacine existed 'in in-land Tasmania' but 'did not approach the thickly populated parts of the country'. Both of these reports agree that thylacines lived in the remoter parts of the colony which were largely unexplored and were not used for grazing and farming, and both making the same contradiction when they go on to say that thylacines killed sheep at farms. The presence of farms certainly implies some degree of settlement where the thylacines were killing sheep, and could hardly be called 'the wilds'."

It goes on to 2 more references from 1852, 1 from 1862 and 2 from 1863 that suggest low numbers for the thylacine.

Of course, the more important point to take out of all that is ""The early white settlers were busy keeping themselves alive and did not have much spare time for writing" ... in sharp contrast to all of us it would seem! ;D How times have changed that we have enough spare time to entertain these philosophical discussions on the perseverance of this mystical species!

[molloch]

I saw a dead Spotted Tail Quoll on the road here yesterday. It was a large male, and was easily one metre from nose to tip of tail. The skull was approaching the size of a devil skull. I have seen fossil ones the same size. It was, unfortunately, a bit too far gone (and not far enough gone) to poke around too much...

I have seen a couple in the wild now, too. They have a number of different gaits, and do a bounding run when disturbed, just like the ones in Murray's trail cam pics.

[tmhahn]

Hi Chris,

An interesting article about how wild animals use swamp forest because they have no other choice. Indirectly supports the idea of Thylacines using harsher areas due to human encroachment.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130228155757.htm

[seth24]

Interesting extract from the 'outer edge' magazine under Tiger country. getting back to thylacines in victoria.
A woman had reckoned she saw a thylacine in the Otways around 1986, and col bailey had said that her sighting was quiete plausible, in that fact that he had been giving a talk at Mt Field national park, and two guys had approached him, regarding cols talk on thylacines in victoria, said that their grandfather used to transport thylacines across by fishing boat to port Welshpool, and trade them. whatever happened to these animals is anyones guess. Going by the report , they were taken over alive and traded. This being in the early 1900's. Possibly these animals were traded to individuals, zoos, or released into the wild.
Whether this gives credence , that tigers were actually released into victoria. Nothing saying the actual numbers of tigers that were transported, if in fact a credible report. ;D

[Deleted]

Molloch "A bit far gone"
What! lacking intestinal fortitude are you mate!!
I saw a well known biologist tearing a rotten corpse a part with his bare hands.
My offer of water, soap,and disinfectant was refused before eating.
I guess I lost a bit of my intestinal fortitude then.

Bushcat

[rayharvey271]

some tribes would not hunt thylacines because it was thier totem, and others gave it to the old pepole to eat . as it was tough and was not a good taste-ing meat ,thats from what i have read , and i think i heard it in a doc as well.

[rayharvey271]

alison read was the daughter of the zoos curator she walk pass the cages most days ,she does a good imiltation of the thylacines in a doc i have .but most animals will have many different vocalization. angry ,scared, mating etc.

[seth24]

Yeah chris, as you stated in your thread "we'll never know if we never go".
The question is, who that someone is going to be?, and are they prepared to spend that time. Taking into account a lot of measures that have to be put into place, before it can ever become a reality. Planning such a trek, especially into those remote areas of the SW or for that matter any remote untouched
widerness areas, would be paramount, and those tasmanian wilderness areas, especially those remote areas, cannot be taken too lightly, ie weather etc, as yourself would have experienced. It would not be a thing for the faint-hearted, and would take a team of knowledgable individuals, whether that be in groups of two's threes or whatever. Timing of the expedition, would also be a factor, in as far as weather conditions go.
As col bailey said you would to have to go in with minimum fuss, no noise, no odours or scent, smell like a gum tree, and virtually be part of the habitat, blend in to that particular environment.
Its good to talk about this in theory, but results can only be bought about by putting it into practice. ;D

[Isengard]

My understanding is that thylacines were most common in the north and west of the island, whereas European settlers were first in the south. I may well be wrong on that but it would explain the discrepancy. I've also read that thylacines were rarely seen even when they were still reasonably numerous and settlers had spread right across the island. Sometimes years went by without one being seen in any given area and then they appeared again. However, wasn't the last known wild one killed in farmland? Is that because it was driven by hunger to try and steal poultry?

I'm with you Chris, Tasmania is approximately the size of Ireland but has a tiny population. I know people do visit all parts of the island occasionally but an animal already renowned for its cautious and secretive nature could easily hide from the odd party of people now and again. The key questions would be is there enough prey in those areas for it and can enough live there to sustain a viable population genetically? After the population seemingly plunged in 1906 iirc were people looking in this area for them or trying harder in regions thought of as more promising habitat?