Ok on a more serious note.
Thylacine.
I was a wildlife officer for the state of West oz for 8 years in total and lived in a small town in rthe southwest, where some of the "Supposed" west oz sightings occurred.
1. Thylacine skeleton was found in a cave somewhere in WA either under the nullabore plan or one of the Margaret river caves or both, i forget exactly, but the fossil record definitely proves they were on the mainland and Island state of Tasmania, and carbon dating put them approximately 14000 years ago?
2. The Aboriginals introduced the dingo to Australian mainland from Asia about 10,000 years ago, (but NOT to Island state Tasmania) and from then on the Thylacine started to die out on the mainland, presumably because the Asian dingo dog was a more efficient hunter of critical prey weight range ground dwelling native fauna, than the Thylacine.
In Tassie the situation was different and thylacine existed there up until white settlement and into the early 1930's at least if not longer.
3. On the mainland - by the time of white settlement - 1770 onwards Thylacine may still have existed in small pockets undoubtedly and the anecdotal record suggests they did!
For example I took an average of 8 reports in writing a year for 8 years from friends and neighboring farmers etc over the period I was there. Not all these people were delusional.
These friends neighbor's citizens of the same town as me (for more than 20 years in total) genuinely believed what they reported. That said the town was afflicted with about 50% "Hippies from the 60's who openly admitted they smoked the wacky tabbacky (mind altering substances), so even if I discounted fully about HALF the reports to be generous it still left the remaining 30 odd reports from people I believed to be genuine enough in their convictions to come to my office of their own volition and make a written report tha if made public would have seen them ridiculed.
It needs to be said that SOME are associated with tourism businesses that promoted the tassie tiger as a tourist draw card so there MAY be some fiscal incentive (profits) motive to deliberately lie.
It was a talking piint in the town - to the extent that - there were even local jokes about it such as:-
The frequency of sightings declines in direct proportion too the distance from the local hotel - the natural conclusion being that if you stay at the hotel drinking long enough your BOUND to see one!
Very hard to be "factual" about a phenomenon like this, in a town with so much 'folk law' attributed too it.
4. Lets look at it statistically!
Town had a pop of about 1200
I had a professional work force of foresters, Forest workers etc of 120 or 10% of the total town population - thus over that 8 year period of 64 reports - with maybe half being in my opinion "genuine", shouldn't I statistically have had at LEAST 6 or 7 reports a year from my own employees especially when you consider they spend ALl their working days actually IN the forest where these thylacines are supposed to live and rest up during the day?
Fact is I had only 1 such report from one employee over all that time.
Statistically......the reports frequency from my own professional forestry people just don;t add up.
5. What besides the Dingo introduction 10,000 years ago, could account for the decline of the thylacine on the mainland? Answer equals introduction of the european fox (and to a lesser extent the common house cat). These two animals species alone prey on the ground dwelling fauna that made up the thylacines main diet, Foxes eat native animals in the critical prey weight range of 0 - 18 pounds. Cats likewise eat even smaller native prey, that Thylacines would have relied upon.
I once worked with famous Aussie naturalist Harry Butler OBE on a native fauna sampling (trapping) program in the southwest. It should be said that while we DID set traps large enough to catch a thylacine (and regularly caught, foxes cats & once even a wild dingo on the Scott River plain, we never did trap a Thylacine.
Hary suggested that there were at LEAST 20 MILLION feral cats in Australia and that each feral cat ate at LEASt 2 native animals a day, so feral cats alone in Aus - eat 40 MILLION native animals a day that Thylacines would once have preyed upon, Add in what Foxes eat (maybe twice that which cats consume) - theres another 49 million native animals a day less for old Thylacine to eat, and then allow for what Dingoes have eaten every day for the last 10,000 years and its not HARD to see WHY ol Thylacine has most likely died out on the mainland in the last 200 years since man arrived.
His decline STARTED 10,000 years ago with the introduction of the dingo - and then 200 years ago whiteman arrives and brings the european fox and feral cat!
Exit one thylacine species from the mainland within the last 20 years!
6. This is NOT the case in Tasmania the Island state with zero dingoes and zero foxes (depending who you believe there's a dept of agriculture in Tassie who claim Foxes have recently been introduced there, yet too date they haven't come up with a dead body bu have had scats etc that suggest foxes are somehow established there now.
If Foxes are now introduced to Tassie, and they become established in feral populations - well you can forget any chance of every finding Thylacine alive in Tassie in future.
I have in the past shared this info with crypto investigators who write books about such stuff but they tend to ignore the facts in favor of what makes for a good story.
I spent 20 years in that town and out and about at night with roo shooters, up before dawn in the bush hunting down and trapping pigs, paddling canoes along the river n the dawn mists chasing trout, had my own deer farm in the town for 20 years, with little fawns born around december every year.
I never saw one thylacine in all that time.
Did I ever see anything strange?
You betcha - I once saw a platypus (not native to west oz) in the Donnelly river at dawn when paddling a canoe down stream after trout! How can they be here then? Well funny enough I actually found a record in the Pemberton CALM office where two breeding pairs were brought in by the royal society - the fore runner of our Perth zoo, along with introduced trout somewhere around the late 1800's almost turn of the century 1900, and released into fly brook in Pemberton.
The spot in the Donnelly R where I saw the platypus, was just over a hill from the fly brook catchment, so it appears that sometime in the last 100 years since introduced they have expanded their territory a little maybe into another water way.
My point I guess is:- for it too be seen - it had to have been there in the first place.
We know the Thylacine was there from the fossil record so it COULD have been seen by white settlers up until relatively recently even perhaps.
We know the platypus was released within the last 100 years and since then i am the ONLY persons to have seen one, and as the local wildlife officer - that makes it an "official sighting"...by the responsible authority.
So - while I am at it - what about the mysterious Cordering Cougar, Pingelly Panther, Denham Panther etc?
Well again, there had to be a release first for it too be possible.
There are records of a circus accident in the area from the late 1950's early 1960's near donnybrook, where up to 3 breeding pairs of "Panther" escaped and were not recovered.
Over the years as Wildlife officer I had several reports about te cougar panther from wildflower pickers, fellow Foresters, citizens, tourists you name it - roughly the SAME number of annual reports as that of thylacines.
Another Forests Officer and myself BOTH saw the SAME black panther at the same time...and looked wide eyed at each other - we even filled out joint official reports for the depts "file" on the subject!
So, yes there CAN be strange things out there, that few people have ever seen - BUT if you spend the better part of your life in the forest as I did both in the official capacity as Wildlife Officer and as a trout guide on the rivers and streams of the southwest, you do see the "strange things" tha others claim - I even saw wild deer on occasion and lots of feral pigs for example.
So - the Bob and Dolly Dyer $64,000 question.
Why didn't I ever see with my own eyes a wild Thylacine in southwest forests, where others reported they had?
I saw just about everything else possible that was out there apart from aliens and Thylacines.
I'll swear on a stack of Bibles to the Platypus and the Black panther thing - but i remain somewhat skeptical about the Thylacine, because I honestly think if there was one out there i would have seen it myself..
BUT
I don;t dismiss the possibility - because SOME of the people who reported to me they had seen one were people who's knowledge integrity etc that I respected (i.e. they weren't the%age who smoked the wackky tabbacky within the town, they were farmers or timber workers etc who spent their lives in the forest.
In short its possible the Thylacines still alive on the mainland somewhere but statisticaly very improbable.
Tasmania's a different kettle of fish entirely:-.
A) Because there's no dingoes
B) Because theres no foxes
C) Because there's recent history of them DEFINTELY being alive there up to the 1930's
D) Because the ground dwelling fauna within the critical prey weight range necessary to sustain the species is still largely intact;
Then it's a fair bet to assume that the Thylacine may have survived in Tasmania IMHO!
Cheers
