Thylacine hunter Neil Waters says he has video of a living family of Tassie tigers
An Adelaide thylacine hunter has released a new video he says has captured images of wild Tasmanian tigers. Not everyone agrees.
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A South Australian man who has devoted countless hours to finding the Tassie tiger says a new video show a family of the creatures in the wild, including a joey.
He and fellow members of the Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia (TAGA) have released what they say is certainly a series of images of a small group of thylacines.
But the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery does not agree, saying it is likely to be a pademelon, a type of small wallaby.
Mr Waters’ latest video includes a series of interviews with “experts” ruling out all kinds of animals they could be, one of them the pademelon.
They include international dog and cat show judges, vets and wildlife experts, most of them choosing to stay anonymous.
“Five vets all agree it looks like a four-legged animal and not a macropod that hops,” Mr Waters says.
“There are some very telltale signs here that this is everything but a pademelon.”
Mr Waters says these signs include the way the tail sits, the fact the feet are broad and there are four toe pads with claws.
He says the animal also has short feet like a Tasmanian tiger and “shiny hocks”, with evidence of striping on the tail.
Mr Waters says the head is “rather broad for a pademelon”.
“It must be the boofiest pademelon head around,” he says.
While Mr Waters says the larger animals in the photos – which he claims to be the mother and father – aren’t giving much away, he says the joey says it all.
“But why the hell would a baby thylacine, which I am absolutely confident that this animal is, be following a pademelon and be being followed by a pademelon?,” he asks viewers.
“Questions do arise about this bizarre revelation.
“Here we have a carnivore hanging out with two herbivores, can somebody please explain to me why this is occurring? I’d love to know.
Mr Waters has spent years trying to find the thylacine, which almost everyone thinks is extinct.
He’s hiked hundreds of kilometres and driven thousands more. Camped out in the freezing Tasmanian bush alone on the blackest of nights. Quit good jobs and moved states.
He’s been ridiculed by online commenters, journalists and experts – but he’s never wavered.
That’s because he’s convinced that one day everyone will have to eat their words.
That day will be when he produces proof that Australia’s largest carnivorous marsupial, Thylacinus cynocephalus, didn’t disappear forever when a Hobart zookeeper accidentally let the last known tiger die of exposure in 1936.
Mr Waters believes that day is Monday.
He says the pictures, captured by one of a web of remote trail cameras Waters and his fellow tiger seekers have set up across the island state, show two adult thylacines and a thylacine joey.
Waters says the pictures, particularly the one of the joey, are “110 per cent thylacine”.
Of course not everyone agrees.
Nick Mooney, a respected conservationist, Tasmanian devil expert and honorary curator at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery TMAG, examined the images and concluded that they were “most likely” pademelons.
A statement from the museum said: “Nick Mooney has concluded that based on the physical characteristics shown in the photos provided by Mr Waters, the animals are very unlikely to be thylacines and are most likely Tasmanian pademelons.
“TMAG regularly receives requests for verification from members of the public who hope that the thylacine is still with us. However, sadly, there have been no confirmed sightings of the thylacine since 1936.”
Mr Waters remains unperturbed.
“It’s been a really surreal time,” the former Adelaide horticulturalist says.
“For the first two weeks (after discovering the images), I was just walking on eggshells.
“I didn’t know what to do really, but I was constantly consulting with the (TAGA) community. We were meeting regularly, talking about the shots, going back over them and looking at the different bits and pieces.
“We thrashed it out a fair bit before coming to the decision to release that (announcement) video.”
Mr Waters says he’s given the images to both dog and cat experts to rule out the possibility that the pictures could be domestic animals, and respectfully disagrees with Mr Mooney’s conclusions.
“All up, we have four photographs,” he says. “I am adamant that they are thylacines.”
Mr Waters says he made the discovery about three weeks ago.
“It was Sunday three weeks ago and I was going through the cards,” he says.
“The first shot I got was a night-vision shot, which was quite blurry, of two eyes and two ears.
“The next shot was immediately thereafter and it had a very thylacine face, and was quite small. The shot after that I believe is the mother, or a female pademelon according to all the naysayers, and the next shot is the juvenile that I am adamant is a baby thylacine.
“The next shot is the father, a lot bigger, and I’m quite adamant that that’s a thylacine as well. I am 150 per cent confident that I have a photo of a baby thylacine.”
Since announcing his discovery, Mr Waters and TAGA have been the subject of media reports from across the country and around the globe. Some of the articles have been respectful, others have been dubious.
Mr Waters doesn’t mind, as long as people are talking about thylacines.
“Yes, we’re making bold statements,” he says.
“Yes, it’s controversial for an amateur person like myself to come out and make these claims, but at the end of the day I’m confident in what we’ve got.
“We’ve been going for seven years now, and we’ve just gone from strength to strength despite all the negative detractors online.
“They’re entitled to their opinions, but at the end of the day I know what I’m doing and I know why I’m doing it and that’s my motivating force.”
Mr Waters said people worried that if the thylacine was proved to still exist that all industry would grind to a halt.
“We don’t have to stop forestry, we don’t have to stop mining, we don’t have to stop farming – it’s rubbish,” he says.
“All we have to do is make sure that the checks are in place to make sure that this animal gets the best protection it can get and leave it alone to do it’s thing.
“And maybe they’ll throw some serious money at researching it.”
Mr Waters said recent research from the likes of UTAS ecologist Barry Brook – putting the likely extinction date of the thylacine as late as the 1990s or turn of this century – fuelled his passion.
“Even the official thylacine online museum says that the animal is likely critically endangered because there have been too many credible sightings to conclude that it’s extinct,” he says.
“This is the stigma that needs to be removed from citizen science.
“We’re capable of doing things as everyday people if we’re given the opportunity to do it and not be laughed at all the time.”
More details at thylacineawarenessgroupofaustralia.com.au
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