Thylacines in India?

[Thylacoleo Gal]

Questers,

The Quest's valiant researchers have scored some notable successes in tracking down obscure news items on Trove. Your insights and expertise are greatly appreciated!

Which started me thinking about another worthy enteprise.

Is there an equivalent of Australia's Trove hidden somewhere within the recesses of the Indian government?

Reason I ask is that the idea of Thylacines in India may not be so far out as one might perhaps imagine.

(Thanks Tommi for getting me thinking along these lines!)

About, what, 18 months maybe 2 years ago, we had a report from a gentleman in India who was certain he'd seen a Thylacine. I'll dig the account out later today, hopefully. From memory it was in central SW India.

Consider this. Thylacines were exported from Tasmania to zoos in the US, Germany and England. In the 1890s-1910s, there were, afaik, hardly any export controls between countires within the old British Empire. Disraeli coined the well known phrase, "Crown Jewel of the Empire", referring to India.

So, my thinking in regard to a Thylacine sighting there is, "Why would not some wealthy but now-forgotten Raja purchase one or several Thylacines for, perhaps, his private game park?" The animals were exotic, they were for sale and their possession may have bestowed upon their owner a certain cachet. If your neighbours only had elephants, tigers and monkeys on their estates but you had Thylacines, would you not rise higher in the esteem of your brother Rajas?

If such were the case, the proud owner would presumably encourage attention from news gazettes of the day.After all, iIf nobody knew of your exploit, what would be the point?

The question for us therefore becomes: are there on-line records in India, equivalent to Australia's Trove?

The hope is that, if a guy spotted one a couple of years ago, perhaps (very remotely!) there's a chance some escaped or were released and, well, who knows what's possible?

Any ideas how to go about a search like that?

[seth24]

the thought of a thylacine being taken to india, is for me hard to comprehend, let alone one or more roaming the indian wilderness in conjunction with the bengal tiger, that is if any were released or escaped. Could be possible that a wealthy rajah or person of high importance did in fact "import" a tiger/s
for his personel collection or zoo specimen. Whether it was possible ( in the early to late 19th century), for one to 'obtain'
specimen/s for a personel collection is up for conjecture,although
there were specimens taken to zoo's around the world. Anything
would have been possible with money been quite an incentive,
for people in those hard economic times. For the tiger having been systematically trapped and slaughted, this would have been
a great way of obtaining financial 'freedom'. Whether there is
some evidence in historical archives somewhere, whether that
be from indian sources or local sources, would be interesting to find out. I hate to think that there were in fact "indian thylacines"
from financial gain. Then again were the tigers which were in zoo's, in london germany etc. were they in fact bought or were they donated. ;D

[mingle]

I suspect they were smoking the same stuff as the person that reported a thylacine sighting in Cranbourne...

[kraftykarl]

Well I think that geography certainly rules out the possibility of Thylacines ever having existed as indigenous to India (I do realise that you never implied this as a possibility.)

Thoughts that spring to mind regarding any chance that escapees could have survived until present include the improbability of a breeding pair escaping within a few years of each other which then reproduced the foundations of a breeding population that has been maintained over successive generations.

Even if this scenario could have come to pass then I would have expected some other reported sightings in the same area. Also it would have involved some remarkable adaptations as to their prey. On the balance of just one report my personal view is that I'm happy to dismiss it as a real possibility in my own mind.

[Isengard]

I would be amazed if this were the case, IIRC thylacines were extremely rare outside of certain major zoos and even then they were pretty uncommon. Tasmania is a pretty temperate climate compared to India too and I don't think thylacines would have thrived in India at all. Just my pen'urth...

[ianmoone]

Is it any more "impossible/unlikely" for Tassie Tigers to be established in India - than for example for Wild Indian Blackbuck Antelope to be running wild in Western Australia?

And yet here we are with a wild WA Population of such antelope as a result of the very efforts of the Royal Acclimatization society!

We have plenty of wild Peacocks here in Oz as well, what swap deals were done by the royal acclimatization society in return for these exotic animals?.

An aside...

With respect to Thylacines in Western Australia's southwest, I once read a "tongue in cheek" comment that environmental scientists had done an statistical and spatial analysis of the reported Thylacine sightings within the Nannup District.

The consensus was that sightings decreased in inverse proportion to the linear distance from the Nannup Hotel.

The logical conclusion being that if one were to spend long enough In the Nannup Hotel main bar one was virtually guaranteed of a sighting eventually just by virtue of statistical probability! ;D

With that in mind - why not Thylacines in India?

I'd keep an open mind on this one.

Cheers

[Surroundx]

Aug 1, 2012 1:09:02 GMT 10 @ianmoone said:

An aside...

With respect to Thylacines in Western Australia's southwest, I once read a "tongue in cheek" comment that environmental scientists had done an statistical and spatial analysis of the reported Thylacine sightings within the Nannup District.

The consensus was that sightings decreased in inverse proportion to the linear distance from the Nannup Hotel.

The logical conclusion being that if one were to spend long enough In the Nannup Hotel main bar one was virtually guaranteed of a sighting eventually just by virtue of statistical probability! ;D

Eric Guiler said a similar thing himself. Albeit the other way around: that sightings increase near pubs.

[Thylacoleo Gal]

Aug 1, 2012 1:09:02 GMT 10 @ianmoone said:

Is it any more "impossible/unlikely" for Tassie Tigers to be established in India - than for example for Wild Indian Blackbuck Antelope to be running wild in Western Australia?

And yet here we are with a wild WA Population of such antelope as a result of the very efforts of the Royal Acclimatization society!

We have plenty of wild Peacocks here in Oz as well, what swap deals were done by the royal acclimatization society in return for these exotic animals?.

An aside....... <snip> ....
With that in mind - why not Thylacines in India?

I'd keep an open mind on this one.

Cheers

That was my thinking, re an introduced population of thylacines in India. Unlikely (maybe?) but not impossible given that the animals were traded. I recall reading years ago about an attempt to introduce kangaroos into Scotland in the 19th century. Obviously, the experiment failed to, uh, get a hopalong ..

The Indian fellow was very specific in the details he gave: I'll definitely go through our archives on the weekend and post it. Seem to recall he mentioned a local tradition of sightings, which if I remember correctly were inland from Chennai. Southern India.

One thing that the skeptic in me would ask is: What about the Fossa as a candidate critter? They do look vaguely thylacinish only without any stripes.

Anyway, welcome aboard the Quest, Ian! And many thanks for your very interesting posts - which I've only now had a chance to start reading!

Best - Debbie

[molloch]

There are actually wild feral wallabies in the UK:
www.independent.co.uk/environment/modern-life-kills-off-the-last-of-britains-wild-wallabies-634097.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286256/Wild-wallaby-shocks-residents-hopping-Cornwall.html

There was a population of albino wallabies near where we used to live over there. I think they were founded from escapees from Whipsnade zoo.

[mingle]

I remember seeing them once - they'd adapted to the UK climate pretty well and had an extra-long shaggy coat!

[Surroundx]

Aug 1, 2012 9:04:01 GMT 10 molloch said:

There are actually wild feral wallabies in the UK:
www.independent.co.uk/environment/modern-life-kills-off-the-last-of-britains-wild-wallabies-634097.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286256/Wild-wallaby-shocks-residents-hopping-Cornwall.html

There was a population of albino wallabies near where we used to live over there. I think they were founded from escapees from Whipsnade zoo.

The Cryptomundo cryptozoological website co-run by Loren Coleman has ran a couple of stories regards macropods being reported in the US if memory serves correctly. It seems that there may be some small feral population of some species, presumably of Macropus sp.

[Isengard]

I am still deeply dubious about this. As you know I am a historian so I can make some comment on this. IMHO the chances of thylacine introduction in India are very, very low. Here are some reasons:

- Climate. The Tasmanian population of thylacines were temperate animals and although I know it did live across different climate zones in mainland Oz I would have thought it was unlikely that Tasmanian derived animals would have thrived there.

- Although it was home to some very rich maharajahs, etc India was still part of the Empire. The centre of wealth and so on was obviously in London and I would imagine any rare animals would have been traded into the UK directly, not to India. Would local elites have had the connections and interest to tap into the market for such animals.

- What would the motivation be? Foxes were often introduced to allow for that most English (and thankfully now defunct) passtime of hunting. India had far more impressive large carnivores in terms of size and aggression. The thylacine was not much different in size to a jackal so why not hunt jackals? Why would the rich want such an animal which was so unimpressive compared to native lions, tigers and leopards?

- Following the Indian Mutiny in 1857 the British took a clear backseat in terms of tinkering in India. They drew back on missionary activity, etc. There was no movement to try and turn India into some sort of new Europe or Australia. Introducing new animals, etc would have been risky and could well have inflamed local sntiment, especially a predator.

- Where would thylacines survive in modern India? The population is immense and pressure on India's wilderness is very high. To my knowledge the main wildernesses left are in the northern mountains. Would thylacines thrive in the Himalayan foothills?

[Thylacoleo Gal]

I am still deeply dubious about this. As you know I am a historian so I can make some comment on this. IMHO the chances of thylacine introduction in India are very, very low.

So am I, Isengard! Trust me. On the other hand ...

Chennai Zoo has emus -->
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arignar_Anna_Zoological_Park

And the Nawab had a pretty big animal collection -->
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nawab_of_the_Carnatic

Although it sounds like the Nawab's game park became a public zoo well before the time frame when a Thylacine exhibit might have been feasible. Who knows?

First thing is to dig out the report: it's on another PC. Weekend job. Things are frantic right now. Second task (for a Quester?): there's an "International Thylacine Database", or similar name, these days. Any Indian specimens recorded therein?

Fwiw, we're talking southern India, Tamil Nadu I think the region's called? Not the Himalayan foothills. I agree, the odds of suitable undisturbed habitat can't be very high. Still. No stone unturned as they say?

[johannes]

Rich men sometimes do import exotic animals - Pepe Escobars hippos have become a local plague in Colombia, and General von Schlieffen, (in)famous for negotiating the Hessian mercenary contracts with the English during the American war of independence, tried to introduce the Barbary macaque in my hometown of Kassel; this failed when the alpha male (the monkey, not von Schlieffen ) caught rabies, and the whole band of monkeys had to be shot.