The Tasmanian Expedition 2012

My Tasmanian Expedition commenced on Wednesday 26th September and concluded on Tuesday 30th October 2012.

During that time I had exhiliarating experiences with the cameras that I had set up over a number of sites in the mountainous regions, the flats and the coastal regions of northern Tasmania. What the cameras captured was simply stunning and amazing and it revealed that the top carnivours namely the Wedge Tailed Eagles, The Hawks, The Tasmanian Devils and the Quolls and the Tiger Cats are thriving in each of these regions.

For the first 2 weeks I found it difficult to get my bearings and also to visually survey each of these regions for evidence of thylacines in the form of predation, footprints ar any other notable evidence.

I was surprised to obtain numerous images of wild feral cats on my cameras in each of these regions and I firmly believe that organisations such as the Government Fox Task Force should devote some resources and energy into the eradication of these pests which impact upon native wildlife. 
The range of video footage and still camera footage obtained each day enabled me to plot and to track the areas where the carnivours inhabit and also to discard areas where there was minimal wildlife activity took place.

Many of the camera sites commenced with the addition of roadkill roos being placed in front of the cameras. The roadkill primarily consisted of the Bennetts Wallabies and the Rufus Wallabies often hit and killed on a daily basis along the major roads in the area. We would start with a 2 week placement of these carcasses at the site and then change to just having the cameras operating on their own without the added attraction of the baits.

I was also pleased that the cameras were capturing images of all of the listed carnivours previously mentioned and that I was not obtaining images of foxes, crows, cats, dog or hog deer that frequent much of my camera images from the Gippsland Region of Victoria.

I also tried to test previously historical methods of luring thylacines through the use of Bacon Fat as a means of drawing them in to my cameras in an effort to obtain photographic images or video. This method did prove to have some limited success.

My research time frame indicated that I was possibly doing this research  a month or 2 too early as many of the native mammals, namely the devils and the wombats were carrying pouch young. Which could also indicate that the thylacines may have pouch young as well and may not be up to the stage of exiting the pouch for a feed.
During my 5 weeks of research I believe that I achieved a great deal in terms of finding out what native animals inhabit each of these regions and also providing evidence that the top range carnivours are thriving alongside logging coups and farmland areas.

On one occassion I happened to walking up a fire break track to an area where a historical thylacine encounter had taken place and also an area where 2 thylacines had been shot in years gone by. As I walked up the track I came to a point where I had some form of animal cough at me from some bracken fern. I stopped and 4 more consecutive coughs took place approximatey 4 – 5 seconds between each. To conteract the coughs I too imitated the same cough back at the creature and towards the area of bush where the coughs appearred to be coming from and immediately the coughs ceased. It was clear that the animal could see me through the camoflaug of the bush but I could not see it.     Fortunately I had a machette in my hand and hoped that the animal would not race out and attack me! So I stood for a minute or so deciding what to do. Eventually I decided to pick up some small boulders and to lob them into the bush area near the coughing. I lobbed one to the right, nothing moved. I then lobbed one to the left some 10 -15 metres once again nothing moved.

I then lobbed one right into the coughing spot some 3-4 metres directly in front of me and amazingly aloud Grrrr along with a bit of bracken fern rustling took place. My thoughts were clear that I had encountered a thylacine in his look out post and being on my own in this remote piece of bush I was not prepared to take him on, so I slowly moved down the slope of the firebreak whilst remaining to keep a firm eye upon the spot where the incident took place. I then made my way back to camp somwewhat relieved and pleased about what I had experienced.

This is the spot where the coughing encounter took place!

In conclusion I believe that these particular regions harbour thylacines and they are on the verge of being almost commonplace in terms of humans having knowledge and evidence of their continued existence since 1936 when the last captive thylacine died in the Hobart Zoo.

Visit the Media Section of this site to see the Thylacine and Carnivores Movies of my expedition during October 2012. Make your own judgement on what my cameras obtained.