In
November, the CFZ launched a project to find evidence for a surviving population
of Thylacines in Tasmania, Australia. A team of 10 – five from the UK,
five from Australia – went ‘in search of’ the Tasmanian Tiger, the first of
several planned expeditions over a two-year period.
While we’ve had a few
bouquets and ‘good onyas’, we’ve also received a few brickbats and nasty asides,
which is mildly amusing all things considered. We've even spent some time
in the past few days directly responding to some of these ill-founded
criticisms.
So here are the general criticisms and our responses to them,
to save us time, as we won’t be visiting every cyber bolthole to personally
respond to critics or address inaccuracies.
~~~
Criticism: It was a success,
when clearly it wasn’t.We never claimed it was! Put it down to
journalistic licence – not everything you read is going to be verbatim,
folks.
The journalist made the quote up (Wow, really? Never!). Her
original question was “So it wasn’t a roaring success, was it?” His reply: “If
you judge the word success as having a body or video of the animal as success,
then no, our trip was not a success, but it was successful in that we collected
many recent eyewitness statements and some scat for analysis.” (Not verbatim,
but you get the drift.)
This trip is merely the first stage in a series
of largely self-funded trips to be conducted over the next two years to gauge
whether there is sufficient evidence of the Thylacine’s survival.
You can
read our aims here:
http://www.cfzaustralia.com/2013/10/toyota-backs-biggest-search-yet-for.htmlCriticism:
You created the perception that outsiders (outside Tasmania, that is) are
coming to solve the mystery!No, we didn’t. We have been liaising with
some Tasmanians for many years. We have travelled down almost every year for the
past eight years or so.
This is a wildlife mystery that transcends state
lines and international borders.
We can’t control media interpretations
or individual perceptions.
Criticism: We have ignored the previous
excellent work by other researchers.No, we haven’t.
We have been
at pains to continually mention the work of countless other researchers
including some of the luminaries in the field – David Fleay, Stephen
Sleightholme, Eric Guiler, Heinz Moeller, Col Bailey, Bob Paddle, and Nick
Mooney, to name a few.
Indeed, we are referring to their knowledge to
inform what we are doing for our own project.
The media edit, omit and
relay information as they see fit – we have no control over the final news
product.
Criticism: The time
period in the field is too short.We would have loved to stay longer but
we are all governed by financial obligations and mundane work-a-day concerns.
This was the first of many trips over a two-year period.
Anyone want to
sponsor us for some fulltime research? ☺
Criticism: We had too
many people, or we didn’t have enough people.The number of people on the
trip is really irrelevant – members were split into teams to canvass areas, set
up camera traps and interview witnesses.
There was not, as some people
might imagine, a conga line of cryptozoologists shuffling through the Australian
bush.
Criticism: We didn’t have the right
background/expertise/knowledge to be undertaking the expedition.Bear in
mind that many of the great zoological rediscoveries of ‘Lazarus’ species (those
species labelled extinct that have been ‘rediscovered’) have been made by
everyday people, including naturalists (surviving night parrot population),
fishermen (coelacanth, subsequently handed to a museum curator), teenagers (the
Bermuda petrel was found by a 15yo boy, and subsequently a naturalist and
ornithologist), and bushwalkers (the NZ Takahe was discovered by a bushwalker
who also happened to be a doctor of medicine).
Many if not all scientists
are at some stage informed in their discoveries by the knowledge of local people
who are aware of the species but have felt no need to either classify them or
study them in-depth. Seldom are these discoveries the work of just one
person.
The team collectively is well read on the subject of Thylacines,
have studied the scats and tracks of Australian (and in particular Tasmanian)
wildlife, and plotted maps of contemporary sightings to inform the direction of
the project.
The team is also liaising with scientists and other
naturalists over any interesting discoveries we come across.
Like any
good expedition, it’s all about teamwork both within and beyond the immediate
team of people who travelled to Tasmania.
~~~
If you think you can do better by
all means get involved – the more the merrier, and we just might
collectively achieve something great!
If you think it’s all a
waste of time, well, that’s fine too. But don’t waste your time or ours by
moaning about it and expecting a reply.
In the meantime, we’ll just get
on with it. As I’m sure every one of you has had personal experience of by now,
the Internet can be a fantastic time sink.
Better we all spend our time
doing something rather than just talking about doing, or
rubbishing those out there who are doing. We're not the only ones out
there looking, after all :-)
And to our loyal readers, supporters, and
peers – thanks for rallying behind our multi-faceted project. Let's hope some
good comes of it.
Over on the CFZ Daily News blog we recently ran a story on a New species of shrew identified in Vietnam . We then got this comment:
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