The video has been released (see this article for example: 'I know it's a tiger': Trio release footage claiming to be Tasmanian tiger sighting). Nick Mooney thinks it is most likely a Spotted Quoll. I'd agree with that. It does move just like a quoll, but I don't really know how a thylacine would move in the wild and I don't have any sense of scale from the video. It seems to definitely be marsupial though and not a fox, which is a step in the right direction! See also this article for some more from Nick Mooney on the images: No Cookies | The Mercury
I think Quoll too. Its the usual indistinct bit of video. Being Tasmania its presumably a marsupial and has got four legs- that's about all you can say though. Can't see how they will get this verified by anybody.
I'm not sure if you can enlarge the video on the first link to see it properly. The video on the second link has changed from what was there when I posted it unfortunately (it had a bit where the clip was enlarged). However if you watch the Youtube video below, you can put it to full-screen and the relevant bit of footage is at 3.32. (It actually starts at "Video 2" at minute 3.05, showing the clip three times, but then the enlarged view is at 3.32). There are various still shots from other cameras before that bit with lighted sections showing where they claim possible thylacines can be seen (most are too obscure to see anything at all). The video in total is all clips from their trail cameras at various locations showing the expected species (wombats, lyrebirds, devils, etc). I think the footage is probably a quoll. From the Youtube video it looks and moves very much like one. But it's not great quality obviously, so it could be something else. It seems quite big, but in the nature of a big quoll rather than a small thylacine.
Yes I was looking at it all last night on one of the Thylacine facebook sites also, where its excited lively discussion obviously. The highlighted stills seem to show some bush and rocks, though I can see no animal there... There's been some discussion about the sizes S T Quolls can reach- up to 5 Kg or more apparently but its hard here to get any idea of scale. The tail seems very long which is a Quoll feature but even after looking several times I can't make any further judgement. Its just all too obscure....in direct contrast to the Lyrebirds, Wallabies etc which are as clear as you could want. But the pink nose at the camera is almost certainly a Quoll though.
Rival thylacine group sceptical of Tasmanian tiger vision Neil Waters, founder of the Thylacine Awareness Group, said he did not doubt the conviction of the Booth Richardson Tiger Team, but was not convinced. "I think their testimony seems very genuine …I think the hype and the build-up that they created in the lead-up to them releasing their footage was a little bit overestimated I suppose, I don't think their footage was anywhere near as conclusive as we'd hoped it would be," he said. Heh. I can just imagine Waters looking at the video and thinking "hmm, that doesn't look anything like a fox. Definitely not a thylacine then." In case the article's title doesn't show up on the link, it is called "Rival thylacine group sceptical of latest vision". The article has a further story about another Tasmanian with "evidence" of thylacines, including a photo of a cat.
Actually Neil Waters summary is quite on the ball here, would he was so accurate about all his supposed mainland Thylacines. Nick Mooney has rated the video a 30% chance of being a Thylacine apparently, but based only on that one indistinct shot where it walks over a rock. 'Either a big Quoll or small Thylacine..'. Odds are its the former then. The 'cat' photo is a previous one supplied by someone called 'Andrew' who has supposedly been seeing Thylacines for many years, including whole groups, yet this is the first/best photo he has so far produced. At least there's no confusion over what it is... he has a couple of others which are less distinct but look like fleeing macropods.
if one of the photos of what "look like fleeing macropods" is one of the ones on that article, after the cat photo - there's another vague animal in the grass to the right with eye-shine. I was assuming that was the supposed thylacine, not the potoroo in the foreground. EDIT: although looking again, that dark shape may be a simulacra. However yes the animal in the foreground is clearly a small macropod.
I've seen two versions of how he rates it, in different articles. In one he was quoted as saying "20%" and "one in five", and in others "30%" and "one in three".
30% was the later one I think but whichever its higher than chances he has previously given, though he has always been open minded to some extent about its possible existence, more so in interviews in recent years it seems.
Losing not a lot of sleep over it: Look at this vid of some intrepid bushriders ... I am not suggesting anything like thylacine. Link: Bit concerned the pick up the bone fragments without gloves or stuff. Not fairly scientific.
I remember that business of the 'Tassie Boys' I think they called themselves. The skull is that of a dog, I always thought a spaniel.
Thanks for that welcome comment: I just find myself viewing most of these thylacine theorists a bit of guilt ridden sensationalist (pseudo science) lot. It never seems to go further than "what can we do ... after a few beers in the woods" and Animal Planet programs. This is so much taking away from real science and the current Queensland research team that is genuinely seeking answers to and is on a road of wildlife discovery in the state there. BTW: there is a good feature in a recent Australian Geographic. It also has good feature on Queensland wildlife and draws some attention to the Lumholtz's tree kangaroos up there too.
Abstract: IT HAS BEEN speculated that a mix of human factors and disease prompted the extinction or near-extinction of the thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus or Tasmanian tiger). According to the general thesis, by introducing grazing to Tasmania, Europeans disturbed and reduced thylacine habitat, destroyed thylacine food sources, introduced competing carnivores and killed countless thylacines as a stock protection measure, for sport, or for the fur trade. After these factors had severely reduced the thylacine's numbers, the onset of an epidemic disease at about the beginning of the twentieth century debilitated, extinguished or virtually extinguished the vulnerable animal. A 2013 paper departed from this thesis, by claiming that human factors alone could account for the thylacine's demise. Haygarth, Nic. (2017). The myth of the dedicated thylacine hunter: Stockman-hunter culture and the decline of the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) in Tasmania during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries. Papers and Proceedings: Tasmanian Historical Research Association 64(2): 30-45. [Abstract]
Carlson, Colin J., Bond, Alexander, L. and Burgio, Kevin R. (Accepted, 2017). Estimating the extinction date of the thylacine with mixed certainty data. Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13037 [Abstract]
Personally, I'm more concerned about the figures used in this than the results. I think a close look will result in an over estimation of numbers. Recently, I've come across two tigers which are indetifiable journalistic errors but are listed as existing. They didn't.
Very slim. But it depends who you listen to. Chances range from zero through to huge Australia-wide populations kept hidden by the government for diabolical reasons.
Obviously the Australian military is training them all in captivity to launch another assault on the emus
