Friday, March 04, 2016

RICHARD FREEMAN: 2016 Thylacine expedition

Yesterday, March 3rd 2016 I embarked on my second trip to the wilds of Tasmania in search of the island’s most magnificent and mysterious animal, the thylacine or Tasmanian wolf.

Often termed ‘the world’s healthiest extinct animal’ this dog like, striped marsupial carnivore is officially extinct. None the less there have been over 4000 sightings since the date of its alleged expiry in the 1930s. The animal has also had its continued survival predicted by computer programme.

There are many iconic extinct animals like the dodo, the passenger pigeon, the great auk and the Bali tiger. No one reports any of these animals but people still report seeing thylacines. Together with expedition organizer Mike Williams I will be visiting a remote area in the north of the island following some startling new evidence of which I cannot yet speak. As with the CFZ orang-pendek project, the CFZ thylacine project will be an on-going investigation into the icon of cryptozoology, conservation and survival.

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES


What has Corinna's column of Fortean bird news got to do with cryptozoology?

Well, everything, actually!

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in.