Picture of a modern-day thylacine?

Posted on Wednesday August 6, 2008 by Stewart Macdonald

Mystery striped mammal

A striped mammal has been photographed by a camera trap set in a remote forest. Is this the sole surviving thylacine? Unfortunately not, as this Edge of Existence blog post shows.

About Stewart Macdonald

I'm a wildlife ecologist living and working in Queensland, Australia. I spend most of my time in the bush finding and photographing wildlife.
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5 Responses to Picture of a modern-day thylacine?

  1. Evan says:
    Thursday August 7, 2008 at 12:16 pm

    Well that’s awfully deceptive. Do you know if camera traps are being used in Tassie wilderness to find the thylacine?

    Evan

  2. Stewart says:
    Thursday August 7, 2008 at 12:22 pm

    Hi Evan,

    I’ve just asked Chris from Where Light Meets Dark. I’ll let you know what he says.

    Stewart

  3. Stewart says:
    Thursday August 7, 2008 at 12:43 pm

    Chris has just sent me this:

    Yes – there are, to the best of my knowledge, 3 or 4 people operating independently with cameras in Tasmania right at this minute. I believe at least one person has something like 15 units out there while others have fewer.

    Apart from these individuals there is a program called “Devils at Cradle” using camera traps to detect the prevalance of devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) as it spreads from East to West across the state. This program is fairly centrally located and interestingly has recorded a relative decline in DFTD over time.

    Historically, the late Dr Eric Guiler is well known for carting large-scale equipment into the Tasmanian bush in decades past. A person operating under the pseudonym, or pen-name, “Tigerman” has published a freely available PDF book online called “Magnificent Survivor” which outlines his work with both cameras and simply being in the bush, in search of the thylacine over a number of years.

    Finally, there are of course many camera deployments on the mainland. At least one person has been putting cameras out in Eastern Victoria for some years, specifically in search of the thylacine; I have from time to time a camera out in NSW in search of Eastern quolls – but do not expect to photograph a thylacine so near to Sydney; and my colleague Debbie Hynes from thylacoleo.com has a number of cameras out at a time in search of Tasmanian devils in Victoria as part of our joint project, http://www.mainlanddevils.com . Of course the devil cameras are in habitat which may or may not also be found suitable for thylacines, although that is not the species we’re aiming for.

  4. Evan says:
    Thursday August 7, 2008 at 12:48 pm

    Cool, thanks for the quick reply.

  5. Chris says:
    Tuesday February 3, 2009 at 10:35 am

    And now I have some cameras down there too.. http://tinyurl.com/tigerhunt09a