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Thylacine living in zoo ?

Discussion in 'General Zoo Discussion' started by Yoman35, 1 Sep 2007.

  1. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    No, there were Thylacines held at both the Beaumaris Zoo and later at the Hobart Zoo on the Domain site. The latter is where the last captive died in 1936. The Hobart Zoo doesn't exist anymore either-unless a new one has recently been re-opened?

    Some of the existing photos(and film?) were taken at each place. The cages were pretty similar at both it appears. The Beaumaris Zoo was in the grounds of a large house in Sandy Bay- the area round the house is indeed a car park nowadays.
     
  2. MARK

    MARK Well-Known Member

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    The National parks service kepted this sighting under raps for a few years, I think he was empolyed to take bird photos by the NPS
     
  3. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    The other film was taken by David Fleay, I spoke with him in 1973 when he told me that animal had bit him on the ass while he was filming it, He said with some pride that he was the only man alive today (1973) that had been bitten by a Thylacine,[/QUOTE]

    David Fleay filmed and photographed the last Thylacine at the Hobart Zoo, not long before it died. It was during this session that he was bitten. There is some discepancy about the sex of this animal (sometimes referred to as Benjamin) Fleay was adamant it was male, though the film and photos neither proves or disprove that statement. As an experienced naturalist it seems unlikely he would be mistaken though.

    There are about five other earlier film sequences. You can see them all on the 'Thylacine Museum' website, mentioned on Jelle's post It is very informative as a comprehensive summary of what is known..
     
  4. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    It certainly stayed in my mind as the most convincing report of a sighting that I have come across. I'm not disbelieving others necessarily, but that one I almost felt it could have been me in that situation....
     
  5. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    DNA Analysis of 1960's scats.

    Does anyone have any recent information on the outcome of this? It was posted as a video clip on another thread recently but I couldn't open it.
     
  6. patrick

    patrick Well-Known Member

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    jelle - i personally don't hold "sightings" even be them in large quantities as very substantial proof of an animals existance.

    firstly, think of how many people in the US report bigfoot sightings... and this is a creature of pure fantasy.

    secondly, most people we have established don't know a hippo from a rhino, let alone a thylacine from a dog. its especially confusing when, in such as in the thylacines case, the animal in question is so often innacurately represented. most books still illustrate the thylacine as a tan wolf with a few stripes thrown down its back.

    thirdly, if most of the sightings in tasmania are to be believed, then it implies the animals are not THAT uncommon. if thats the case, how come nobody has come accross ANY substantial proof of the animals existance in recent times? thylacines are not ghosts. they are real animals.

    and lastly, thylacines were extirpated in a relatively short period of time, with relative ease by farmers who feared they would prey on their stock. that to me suggests two things...

    a) that the animals lived in close contact with the areas being settled (which was open woodlands that could be cleared easily, not old growth rainforest) and....

    b) that the animals were not exceptionally inconspicuous, at least not in any way like they are made out to be today.

    basically - thylacines never lived in deep rainforest. if so, they would never have gone extinct. i can't imagine that the early european settlers went off on month-long explorations into the dangerous terrain of the tasmanian wilderness just to protect their sheep. that wouldn't have benifited them and they would never have needed to. instead like all farmers they protected their farmland and surrounding areas. unfortunately for the thylacines. the farmers settled virtually every single patch of their habitat. thus giving them knowhere to escape. thylacines were not distributed throught the entirety of tasmania at all....

    and lastly. mainland sighting are in no way credible in my opinion. australia may be a damn big continenet with very little people, but once again, most of it is not thylacine habitat. the areas that are, mostly along the eastern coast, have been colonised for over 200 years now and nobody has ever shot a thylacine (either with a bullet or a camera). the very good reason for this is becuse for the last few thousand years, australia has been inhabited by wild dogs brought to the mainland by asian fishermen. these dogs actively outcompeted and possibly hunted, in packs, mainland australias two largest carnivores from existance. there are no dingoes in tasmania, which explains why devils and thylacines survived there much longer.

    so you have to remember. its dubious enough wether or not there are thylacines in tasmania after just a few decades of persecution. now imagine what the odds are like for a mainland thylacine - persecuted for centuries...

    on funding a search - parks and wildife have searched for the thylacine, virtually everyone has - and found nothing. likewise, i find it hard to believe this has something to do with protecting the loggers (indeed like i said, most scientific evidence suggests the forests are not their habitat anyway) instead it has an aweful lot to do with the fact that most good science suggests searching for a living thylacine will be a futile effort.

    put it this way, can you imagine how big the news would be if a living "tiger" was found alive? can you imagine how much international interest in tasmania it would provide? should an effective ressurection of the species follow, can you imagine how much tourism would follow?

    i personally don't believe, neither the tasmanian, nor australian federal government, would find opposition to pouring millions into thylacine conservation should one be found alive. the interest both in australia and around the world would be far, far too high to risk damaging our international image over. it would be move aside giant panda, heres a real animal with a profile akin to the loch ness monster.

    unfortunatly jelle, being a "tiger believer" is somewhat of a religion for some people, just the way searching for bigfoot is. it was a sad feeling when, after reading enough books on the subject that i found my better judgement over-rode my desire to belive their may still be some of these animals alive today.

    but nontheless, i think animals are animals and if people are smart enough to manage to exterpate them, then i think we are smart enough to discover them should we look hard enough. and people have looked long and hard for the thylacine.

    but naturally, this is one time when i would love, more that anything else, to be proven wrong.
     
  7. ^Chris^

    ^Chris^ Well-Known Member

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  8. Zoo_Boy

    Zoo_Boy Well-Known Member

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  9. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    Chris and Zoo Boy (with the same video), that would appear to be a fox with mange. It is not an uncommon occurance in Australia (and foxes have also occasionally been seen in Tasmania, before their more recent deplorable introduction there in the last few years).

    I largely agree with Patrick's big response above, but would point out that the thylacine population crashed so fast that it is more likely that a European-introduced disease wiped them out rather than (only) direct hunting. As he says, there is really no chance at all they are still found on the mainland. I like to think they are still in Tasmania though.

    Anyway, I'm going over there in November so I'll keep an eye out ;-)

    PS in terms of sightings meaning something, anyone heard about the one seen running across a road in England in the 1970s!!
     
  10. patrick

    patrick Well-Known Member

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    somethings wrong with my posts... this is a tester..
     
  11. MARK

    MARK Well-Known Member

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    That seems to be ok Pat
     
  12. patrick

    patrick Well-Known Member

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    youtube video..

    Damnnnn It!!!

    on account of this damn thing refusing to post my very detailed deconstruction i'll be short then...

    essentially i said i was intrigued. as an animator i studied it frame by frame very carefully. body seems very authentic, as does the tail, the way its held and the stripes (the animals thylacine-like stripes are clear in numerous frames).

    there are a number of features that usually give away a painted dog. this video in my mind has none of these. by no means am i saying this is authentic though. just that its probably the most convincing footage i've seen. it could be constructed quite easily, but by someone who knew what they were doing....
     
  13. MARK

    MARK Well-Known Member

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    It will be very interesting what turns up in the mountains of PNG over the next few years, in resent years as we know a number of new species of tree Kangaroos have been found, as some of us know a number of sightings of " Tassie Tiger like" animals have been reported so who knows what may turn up, the western half of the Island could turn up a few surprises, I guess only time will tell.
     
  14. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I'm presuming this isn't the 'starving dog' video we've been talking about.

    I have one question- what COLOUR is the animal you have been looking at? ;)
     
  15. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    Okay, I think I've seen the video you guys are talking about now. And it does look more authentic than the others- the most authentic looking I've seen, in fact. Does anyone know where it was filmed exactly?

    BUT sadly, and as always, it isn't clear enough for an unambiguous decision though, is it? :confused:
     
  16. MARK

    MARK Well-Known Member

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    I think they said it was filmed in South Australia
     
  17. patrick

    patrick Well-Known Member

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    then its a fake.

    circa 1973 in northern tasmania is a totally believable scenario. south australia is a dog with a fake tail and painted stripes. i'm personally find it highly unlikely that thylacines live on in tasmania, the idea of them on the mainland it just utter rediculousness.

    new guinea is an interesting one. it entirely plausable. however, the extinction of the thylacine on mainland australia was very likely due to the introduction of the dingo.
    and you have to remeber that new guinea also has wild dogs, as has had for an equally long time. also, the thylacine of mainland australia and tasmania was not a rainforest animal. there are open grassland/woodland type habitats in new guinea, populated by agile wallabies and a assortment of thylacine prey, but i'm not so sure how "remote" these areas are. if there is a thylacine in new guinea it may very well be a distinctly different species (remember in prehistoric times there were various species of thylacine) but i suspect all thylacines evolved the way they did to live in open habitats. and really i'm a bit of a sceptic here as well. despite knowing how remote much of the island remains, especially on the indonesian side.
     
  18. MARK

    MARK Well-Known Member

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    if there is a thylacine in new guinea it may very well be a distinctly different species (remember in prehistoric times there were various species of thylacine) but i suspect all thylacines evolved the way they did to live in open habitats. and really i'm a bit of a sceptic here as well. despite knowing how remote much of the island remains, especially on the indonesian side.[/QUOTE]


    Pat "IF" the Thylacine was found in PNG maybe it could turn out to be a smaller sub species as happens in many animals over a large range and conditions, even a smaller Thylacine would be a wonderful thing :)
     
  19. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    Forget it then... As Pat said, and I agree 100%, there are NO thylacines on mainland Australia. I completely disregard any such reports and have always done so...

    Tasmania- now the Thylacine was generally regarded as favouring' light sclerophyll forest'(a fancy name for open woodland) also grasslands and open heath. Eric Guiler always maintained they were common on the coastal heaths as here there were good concentrations of prey. Woolnorth, in the NW returned a very high count of tiger kills during the bounty scheme, and it has large areas of coastal heath. As Pat commented, they were obviously common in the areas settled, the plains and light woodlands. Possibly they were entirely absent from the denser forests and scrublands where some people hope they remain today. Look at the 1912 Albert Quorrel 'trophy' phot0- the background where it was show as open woodland. Mawbanna, where the last known wild one was shot nowadays is open farmland surrounded by patches of light eucalypt woodland and was probably similar back in 1930. So the 'last' known animals were living in quite open/settled areas

    Another interesting fact- markings- only three animal species that I know of have the distinct striping pattern on the back- Thylacine, numbat and banded duiker(africa) Its presumably evolved as a camouflaged pattern to imitate sunlight/moonlight and shadows amongst vegetation- so probably the owner needs to live in fairly open areas to benefit from it? I believe numbats live(or lived) in open woodland?

    Colour- many reports(not all I'll admit) refer to a 'fawn' or 'brown' animal with darker stripes. Actually, the Thylacine was a dark grizzled GREY colour with darker(almost black) stripes. Look at any skin that hasn't been exposed to light for years as have the mounted specimens, and you'll notice the difference. Alison Reid who was the daughter of the curator of the last Hobart Zoo, from memory of them at the zoo, she described their fur as the 'colour of a rabbit's' which is pretty accurate.

    Like Pat, I'd love to be proved wrong in believing that they couldn't have remained undetected in Tasmania for more than seventy years now....
     
  20. MARK

    MARK Well-Known Member

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    grant very little was known about the species, a lot of it seems just guess work