Col Bailey's New Book - "Shadow of the Thylacine"

[seth24]

col baileys new book 'shadow of the thylacine' release date due for 1/5/13. Can purchase now on ebay through nile books australia. cheers seth

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[Thylacoleo Gal]

Thanks Seth. Will check it out.

[devildog]

I'm about halfway through Col's book - it's a great read with plenty of anecdotes of unique experiences, sightings and tributes to some fair dinkum trappers and bushies of old. Highly recommended

[seth24]

great to know devil dog, you don't 'muck' around, have mine on order, and also anticapating a good read. cheers seth ;D

[molloch]

Thre doesn't seem to be an ebook version available, but you can read the first 25 pages for free on Scribd:

www.scribd.com/doc/130976950/Shadow-of-the-Thylacine-Extract

[devildog]

FYI - Abbey's bookshop on York St in Sydney had their stock available earlier this month.

[youcantry]

Just finished the book. Definitely a compelling read and well written. Yes, there are new sighting accounts in there including a thylacine allegedly shot near Adamsfield in 1990 and a colour, film-based photograph of the forepaw with other photos allegedly sighted showing the ventral side including fresh grazes to the hock indicating a freshly dead animal (ie post-advent of colour film at least). His own encounters amount to a sighting, at least two instances of vocalisations (sometimes of more than one animal) and one smelling. (What else do I call it??)

I'm very pleased to say the areas Michael and I targeted match up exactly with the areas where Col had his encounters. Further, Col presents a theory of thylacines migrating about the state from favoured hunting ground to favoured hunting ground via "corridors". Where we found our print is actually at one of the corridors he describes, which is in fact fairly narrow, and in the direction of travel you would expect from Col's theory on their migration. I like it (of course)!

Before this book I was feeling - as perhaps many of us - that sightings have been getting fewer and fewer these past five years (well ok, almost non-existent). What this book does is inject some fresh enthusiasm into the subject with some really substantial and/or recent stories which, basically, come across as credible if you take them as honest accounts at face value.

Very happy to have this in my collection.

[seth24]

Hav'nt as yet recieved col bailey's book. just a mention on
the photo col had of the forepaw, which was supposebly, taken from a thylacine, which had been shot by some blokes. Would this have been the same incident that was mentioned in the short doco,jaws of extinction, narrated by chris packham, where he interviewed col. Col actually took chris out to the spot where the animal had allegedly been shot. Interesting question came out of this, as to why the forepaw was kept, and the head,body etc was not. There was not an actual answer to the question, but was wondering whether col reiterated a bit more on it, in the book. ;D

[youcantry]

From memory two guys were hunting and startled a nearby animal. They shot it without realising what it was. I don't recall anything being mentioned about a documentary, or about only some parts of the animal being kept, but I do recall there were supposedly several photos taken but the paw is the only one Col got. He also pointed out they were taken with a film camera, in colour.

[saggitarius]

I am keen to get a copy of the book. I was shown the colored photos of a shot Thylacine perhaps 20 years ago. A Thylacine researcher showed me about 10 prints which showed front and back feet, head and jaws, overall body, bullet entrance wound and exit wound. How he obtained the prints from the hunters was dubious and so they have never seen the light of day. I wonder if this front paw photo you refer to is one of the ones I saw.

[youcantry]

Hi Saggitarius, that sounds like a really interesting set of photos. Can you tell us more about where you saw them (eg in Tasmania?), where they seem to have been taken (eg, on site, in the field, straight after the kill? In a room?), or any other details that come to mind? The timing of approx 20 years ago seems to match up - the one in Col's book was allegedly shot 23 yeras ago, in 1990.

[saggitarius]

I have to be careful here that I don't divulge the identity of the person, or myself either at this stage. Let's just say I was in a job where I was doing some research into Thylacine sightings in the Loch Sport and Briagolong areas of Gippsland and this fellow came to Victoria to meet me. He urged me to keep trying to find proof because Thylacines were not extinct. He then produced the photos as evidence. I would have loved to have scanned a couple but that technology was not readily available to me at the time. Not sure he would have allowed it.
As I recall, the photos were taken in the field and were very clear. Bullet entrance wound was small and exit wound not much larger. Photos of the feet were close-ups showing the pads and toe-nails. I would say that the photos were taken pre rigor mortis as the animal was onbiously able to be moved into different positions to photograph the feet etc.
Looking through some papers I have suggests I was shown the photos in early 1992.

[youcantry]

Thanks Saggitarius. I don't want to compromise your position. The details you've provided are consistent with the report in Col's book in the fact that the tiger allegedly shot at Adamsfield was shot in 1990 (ie the timing matches), and there was at least one photo taken which shows the pads on the underside of a forefoot - this photo is included in the book (ie the photos you saw included one showing a foot's pads).

There is a photo of a taxidermied specimen on Cameron Campbell's online Thylacine Museum, here: www.naturalworlds.org/thylacine/biology/anatomy/external/external_anatomy_8.htm ... having the caption "Palmer view of thylacine manus..." - this is essentially the same view shown of the thylacine allegedly shot at Adamsfield.

If you find the book in a shop there is a section in the middle with photographs on glossy pages. The photo is there (alongside the one I just linked, as a reference - and they basically look the same).

Chris.

[molloch]

For those with Kindle's or other e-readers, the book is on special for about $8.

www.amazon.com/Shadow-Thylacine-Search-Tasmanian-ebook/dp/B00CL3N4R0

I am about 2/3rds through. His recount of his sighting is excellent, and he either really saw a Thylacine, was hallucinating or is being deliberately misleading - which doesn't fit with anything I have read from Col. It is highly unlikely that he was mistaken and it was a nice, clear sighting with nothing mystical or magical about it. It is also around a time which fits with the Naarding sighting and a number of others.

[youcantry]

These forums need a "like" button

[seth24]

wondering if any questors caught the col bailey interview on the today show, saturday morning. didn't get to see it myself. but hopefully will catch a replay sometime on their website.
, if they decide to put it back on. cheers seth ;D

[youcantry]

Seth, a friend caught the tail end and recorded it on their phone for me. But alas not the whole thing. I'd like to see it too.

[james]

Finally got around to ordering Col's book and I am now about 2/3rds of the way through. A really interesting read. It basically leaves me with the feeling that finding evidence of the Thylacine is as much of a problem as knowing what to do with it it. The photos of the dead thylacine discussed above sound very compelling (you can see 2 of the photos mentioned in the doco at at about 16 minutes) but I find it frustrating that although the photographer went to the lengths of photographing the dead animal and showing it to some people nothing more has come of it and nobody close to the matter even seems to want to talk about it. If the photographer had wanted to cover up the event they would not have taken the photos - but where are the photos now? Have they all been analysed properly? This to me sounds like it may well constitute enough evidence to at least move forward the last date that the Thylacine is accepted to have been extant, if not have it reclassified as Critically Endangered.

I deal with confidential information every day, there are ways of managing this. I would be very interested in talking to anyone who can show me these photos.

We are now at a point where we have a prominent member of this board having sourced a good quality footprint, we have a respected researcher from Tasmania stating that he saw a Thylacine in the flesh in 1995 and we have photos that appear to be from a (at the least) post 1936 dead specimen in the field and all these from around the same area in Tasmania and this all get us.... nowhere?

[Deleted]

Oct 22, 2013 19:38:34 GMT 10 james said:

Finally got around to ordering Col's book and I am now about 2/3rds of the way through. A really interesting read. It basically leaves me with the feeling that finding evidence of the Thylacine is as much of a problem as knowing what to do with it it.

The game has probably changed with the advent of the Abbott government in Australia. Both at state and federal level the conservative governments have watered down several of the laws relating to environmental protection, so the news that the existence of the Thylacine had been confirmed would probably be regarded as an inconvenient impediment to progress and economic growth. Personally If I were to come across clear evidence of the thylacine being extant, I would be waiting until the election of a more sympathetic government before releasing it.

[james]

Fair point Plesiosaurus, and yet these photos have been in existence for 20+ years through a number of governments and nothing came of them (sure they might have been found to be fraudulent, but that is useful to know in itself - although it doesn't seem that they were dodgy from what I have read). Will there ever be a time that is really right for the release of information showing that the thylacine still exists? It seems that the only information likely to come to light that incontrovertibly proves the existence of a thylacine is going to be released by the wrong people in the wrong way eg attention seekers.

The alternative would be good evidence handled by people who genuinely care enough about the animal and want its existence to continue and have a fair idea about how to manage such information - a perfect scenario might be the release of this set of photos to someone like Col Bailey who, in conjunction with Eric Guiler (sadly no longer with us I know, but who was alive at the time the photos appeared) and whoever else he trusts, could have made the most of them. But instead he gets a look at them, manages to get a copy of one then they disappear although people pop up from time to time saying that they have seen them and drop tantalising details about them. What was the point of the exercise? Why bother taking the photos in the first place?

Excuse my ranting - I just find the situation very frustrating at times!

[exoldrover]

A quick question to those who can see the paw photos in the book, what colour are they?

[youcantry]

James - plus the vocalisations Col heard, and potentially I heard last year too. (It's hard for me to get verification for what I heard. All I can go on is text descriptions and the sound I heard matching those - I don't have the benefit Col has, of having spoken first-hand with first-hand eyewitnesses of pre-extinction thylacines).

[james]

Yes - sorry Chris I forgot about those!

[saggitarius]

From memory, I think the gent who showed the photos to me suggested that he had obtained them in an underhand manner. I think he was allowed to keep the photos for 24 hours to study them (remember no scanners in those days so the shooter/owner might have been happy to do this on the proviso he got all photos back.) When he discovered the negs in the package and he went down and had them printed by a mate in a photo shop. Next day he returned the entire package to the owner.
Why after 20 years the full lot of photos have not resurfaced, I would not know for sure. If, as I believe, the shooter is in the employ of the Tasmanian government, he might fear losing his job and superannuation benefits. Especially so if he was employed in the parks service charged with protecting native animals.

[chela]

in this book it says that cow milk was fed to a young thyla and it survived and later was fed meat ....ho hum

how come roos, wombats , koalas etc cant tolerate cow milk ( lactose intolerant) and eventually die??

[molloch]

It isn't just lactose sensitivity that causes marsupials not to thrive on cow's milk, it is that marsupial milk is very specific and goes through a number of changes relative to the stage of the joey. Even puppies and kittens can't really survive on cows milk, although some do. Marsupials are not lactose intolerant, per se, but they have a very specific lactase capacity and can't digest any more lactose once they reach that level of lactose in their diet. Macropods can develop numerous problems, including diarrhea and eventually cataracts, from a high lactose diet.

While the lactose content of milk varies greatly between species, it is very unlikely that any marsupial could be raised from an unfurred joey to adulthood on cows milk. A furred joey might have more of a chance, especially if the cow's milk was just supplementing the solid diet.

Tassie Devil milk is about 45% solids, 30% fat, 5% sugars (including lactose and other carbohydrates), 6% protein, and 320mg of Calcium per 100ml
Cows milk is about 13% solids, 4% fat, 5% sugars, 3% protein and 120mg/100ml Calcium.

It is highly unlikely you can get a devil kit to survive on cows milk, I can't imagine a Thylacine would be much different.

Ref: Jackson, S. Australian Mammals: Biology and Captive Management, Appendix 4

[dennisw]

Marsupial milk is also apparently the source of major antibodies, there was an article published some time back suggesting extracts of wallaby's milk being investigated for the treatment of disease. I didn't memorise the source or the full detail as I only glanced at the article.

[molloch]

Antibiotics, rather than antibodies. This article is a little old, not sure where their research is up to. Probably run out of funding like everyone else.

www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/anti-superbug-weapon-developed-wallaby-milk/

[james]

Coincidentally I was reading Col's book on the train on the way home tonight and as I got off a lady came up to me and commented on the book saying that she had read it as well. She asked if I was interested in a story and I replied very enthusiastically that I was (but not overly enthusiastic, I didn't want to look like a wierdo). She then recounted how she was born in Tasmania and had hiked the Overland Track in 1963(? - certainly in the early 60s) with a friend and she told me that on their first night they heard a very strange and loud call coming from one of the valleys. Intrigued they asked the ranger in the morning what it might have been and they said, very matter of factly, that it was the 'tigers' and that they didn't advertise the fact that they were there. She wondered afterwards why the ranger had been quite open about there being tigers when they didn't want to advertise the fact but she figured that back then not many people were hiking up there and those that did would have the tigers best interests at heart.

James

[dennisw]

@ molloch; thank you I didn't have the time to do a search and wasn't sure how long ago I had seen the article - I should read the full detail on these things because then I remember them but laziness and lack of time means I often just skim articles.