| Cameron sighting
(1984) Western Australia:
Athol Douglas (1986),
a zoologist working for the Western Australian Museum, published a paper
in the New Scientist on the 24th April 1986,
entitled "Tigers in Western Australia".
In his paper, Douglas
published photographs of what appears to be a thylacine digging behind
a tree stump in the Western Australian bush. |
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Photo: Kevin Cameron.
Courtesy: New Scientist (24th April 1986).
|
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| The photographs, together
with casts of footprints, were obtained in early November 1984 (Healy and
Cropper 1994) by Kevin Cameron, an Aboriginal tracker working for the Agricultural
Protection Board. Douglas states:
"Early in February
1985, Kevin Cameron, who lives in Girrawheen in Western Australia, shoved
five photographs at me. He offered no comment, and his manner was
almost aggressive. As I looked at the photographs, the identity of
the animal within them was unmistakeable. It was about the size of
a dog, with dark bars across the rump and a thick base to its tail.
I realised without doubt Kevin had found the Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine,
alive in the south-west of Western Australia".
Dr. Ronald Strahan,
former director of the Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney, who also examined the
photographs, concluded: "that they are authentic and could be nothing
other than a thylacine" (Douglas 1986). |
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|
Kevin Cameron's photo
compared with one of a thylacine at the London Zoo, circa 1909, displaying
erect tail.
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| In a later paper entitled
"The
Thylacine - A Case for Current Existence on Mainland Australia", published
in the journal Cryptozoology, Douglas (1990) expands on his thoughts
on the Cameron photographs:
"When I saw the negatives,
I realised that Cameron's account with regard to the photographs was inaccurate.
The film had been cut, frames were missing, and the photographs had been
taken from different angles - making it impossible for the series to have
been taken in 20 or 30 seconds, as Cameron had stated".
Douglas continues:
"There were no photographs
of the animal bounding away. Furthermore, in one negative, there
was the shadow of another person pointing what could be an over-under .12
shotgun. Cameron had told me he had been alone. It would have
been practically impossible for an animal as alert as a thylacine to remain
stationary for so long while human activity was going on in its vicinity.
In addition, it is significant that the animal's head does not appear in
any of the photographs".
Douglas had the photographs
professionally examined, and determined: "besides the time lapse determined
by the shadow movement, there was a difference of several hours in the
exposure times of the first and subsequent prints".
Douglas concluded that
apart from the first exposure, the thylacine in the photographs was a dead
animal, rigid from rigor mortis. This would explain the time lapse
interval between the first and subsequent prints. |
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|
Photo: Kevin Cameron.
Courtesy: New Scientist (24th April 1986).
|
On closer examination,
the tail of the mystery animal in the Cameron photographs, with its broad
base, is certainly thylacine in appearance. The animal's stripe pattern
however, is atypical of what one would normally expect to see for the species,
with the banding appearing broad and diffuse, and with no discernible extension
of the stripes down the rear leg. |
