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Whether you think the photos the Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia released this week are actually of a Tasmanian tiger family or not doesn’t matter.
Soon the group of more than 100 hunters around the country will have irrefutable proof, says its president Neil Waters.
Speaking to news.com.au today, Mr Waters has been busy putting together his rebuttal to experts like biologist Nick Mooney who said the photos he released on Monday were likely of a pademelon.
Mr Waters maintains two of the images he’s shown are of a thylacine joey, based on the fact vets he spoke to ruled them out as cats and all the experts he interviewed agreed the animal was a quadraped, meaning it has four legs and doesn’t hop.
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“They know what they’re looking at, I can’t emphasise it enough,” Mr Waters said.
“This represents proof of breeding.”
Mr Waters wants proof of breeding so the thylacine can be reclassified as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
“If we prove beyond any shadow of a doubt … if we can verify the two photos are clear of a thylacine baby then that is enough in the scientific world to prove it still exists, is still breeding and drastically needs to be protected more than what it is,” he said.
Asked whether proof should be more focused on DNA evidence, Mr Waters said scientists were “lazy” saying they needed that.
“Scientists are lazy and they want DNA,” he said.
“They don’t want to get calipers out and do measurements and the hard science. They used to do identifications without DNA for many, many years.
“I do not want to see a thylacine in some science lab cut up so they can study it. They need to spend a lot more time in the field studying this animal but they have the same rigid processes.
“They could learn about the animal’s diet, migration, seasonal variations and breeding cycles by getting off their bottoms, locating the animals and studying them.”
Mr Waters also slammed the Tasmanian Government for not investing more into finding the thylacine.
“We don’t see that level of commitment applied to this animal and Tasmania has got a history of not really caring about this animal, sadly,” he said.
“We’re trying to prove this animal exists and we get zero help from the government.
“There has been thousands of sightings in 85 years but they keep ignoring them.
“Because we haven’t produced a dead animal for science to cut up they don’t want to believe it. We have this idiotic government that wants to pretend it’s extinct.”
Mr Waters funds his efforts through personal savings, throwing away his career and a full-time job as a horticulturist in Adelaide to pursue his passion.
There are more than 100 people like him searching for proof.
READ MORE: Unearthed footage shows last-known glimpse of extinct Tasmanian tiger
“It won’t be much longer because we’re very close to getting irrefutable proof the animal is still here,” he said.
Mr Waters points to audio, video and “DNA evidence” the group has gathered in the past.
That evidence was the closest the group came to DNA proof, he said, with Mr Waters finding a large poo in 2017 that was linked to a numbat.
“It was a Bondi cigar big poo – if it came from a numbat it would have turned the poor little bugger inside out,” he said.
“The numbat and thylacine have identical DNA for 90 per cent but the numbat is not in Tasmania. That was my key to it being a thylacine poo because there are no numbats in Tassie.”
Mr Waters said all of the detractors and haters “give me more fire in my belly to prove them wrong”.
He said the group’s efforts were putting pressure on authorities to get their heads out of their backsides because “their heads have been up their bum on this issue and have been for way too long”.
He thinks there should be a national inquiry launched.
Do you think the thylacine could still exist? Share your thoughts in the comments below
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