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|
Expeditions
and Searches - 1937 to Present-Day
Wright (1984):
In January 1984, Peter
Wright announced that he planned to make a search of the Western Tiers
near Mole Creek, where he owned a Wildlife Park. The private search
was well funded, with an AU$250,000 budget. A base camp was constructed
near Lake Adelaide, where there had been both historical and recent sightings.
Sophisticated field cameras were employed designed to transmit information
back to the base camp. Unfortunately, the cameras failed due to inadequate
testing in the field. In August 1984, the search was scaled down
prior to being terminated later that year. |
.
In an interview in
the Mercury newspaper of the 26th October 1984, Wright claimed to have
collected droppings, and that these were being independently analysed at
a Sydney laboratory, but
.
.
| A
plaster cast of a possible thylacine hind track taken in 2003 by Tigerman,
author of the online publication Magnificent Survivor
- Continued Existence of the Tasmanian Tiger. The total length
of the cast is 18 cm (7 in.). Compare it to illustrations
of the thylacine's hind
foot (pes) drawn by R. Pocock in 1926. |
. |
would not reveal
its name. He also claimed to have taken photographs of footprints
which he initially stated were "definitely those of a tiger" but
later changed his mind, saying that they were
"probably those of a tiger".
No report into the Wright expedition's findings was ever produced.
"Tigerman"
(2002):
In May 2002, whilst
on a field trip to Tasmania, a young environmental scientist sighted a
juvenile thylacine, followed the next
day
by an adult. These sightings instigated what was to become a major
search effort resulting in the publication of a free online book entitled
"Magnificent
Survivor - Continued Existence of the Tasmanian Tiger".
This subsection
of the Thylacine Museum has concentrated on the major searches for the
thylacine, but over the years there have been numerous smaller investigations
of specific sightings. Along with Eric Guiler, one man in particular
has been responsible for more investigations into localised sightings than
any other, and that is the well-known author and researcher Col Bailey.
Bailey has spent over thirty years investigating thylacine sightings in
Tasmania, and is widely acknowledged by his peers to be amongst the most
experienced of present-day field researchers. |
. |
| It is appropriate to
conclude this subsection with the words of Eric Guiler (1998):
"The question remains
as to what, if anything, has been achieved by these searches and expeditions.
Some were of short duration, lasting only a few days, others extended for
weeks, even years. All failed to produce final irrefutable evidence
of the existence of the Tasmanian tiger. It is abundantly clear that
there is little point in plunging head first into the investigation of
new sightings reports, in which the identification of the animal may be
incorrect and thus time and money wasted. Even when a Tasmanian tiger
has been sighted, no evidence has been found to prove that the |
| animal remained
in the area. Mooney's efforts at Togari after the Naarding sighting
clearly point to the likelihood that the animal was only passing through.
Long term searches using photographic methods have proven equally fruitless,
suggesting that an animal never returned to the spot where it had been
seen. The conclusion that the thylacine is an elusive animal is disconcertingly
obvious, especially in view of the fact that not a single specimen was
photographed in all the years that automatic cameras were in position.
It may well be that the species had learned to avoid human contact, but
the sad fact is that so little is known about thylacine habits that one
cannot even be photographed, let alone caught". |
.
.
| A
bronze sculpture of a family group of thylacines at the city library of
Launceston, Tasmania. |
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