Yowie sighting in the Pilliga

Govt harasses dingo campaigner

More than two months after government officials stormed her home and seized her possessions in a dawn raid, dingo protection campaigner Jennifer Parkhurst says she’s still in 'limbo'.
Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) staff seized the photographer’s camera gear, computer equipment, videos and photos in the dawn raid, which it claims was an investigation into commercial activity and illegal dingo feeding.
Ms Parkhurst has led a campaign against the state, accusing it of mismanaging Fraser Island dingoes and allowing 'out of control' rangers to illegally kill the dogs.
During the raid the state seized years of documentaries into alleged dingo mismanagement. Mr Elmes claims it was the state’s attempt to cover up wrongdoing.

Ms Parkhurst has launched numerous FOI applications into dingo deaths, and has been writing a book on Fraser Island's dingoes.

High-profile civil libertarian Terry O’Gorman said Ms Parkhurst's situation was 'unacceptable and oppressive'.

http://noosa-journal.whereilive.com.au/news/story/i-have-no-future-and-no-past-says-dingo-protester/

Saturday strangeness

CFZ member Neil Arnold visited the Natural History Museum in London recently and took in some of its cryptozoological exhibits - two of which are relatively close to home for us!

The Museum holds several interesting exhibits including a marsupial Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus; Greek for "dog-headed pouched one") and a New Zealand Moa (Dinornis robustus), a 12ft flightless bird. He writes about his visit in Museum of Monsters for The Londonist. Read it here. Photo by Neil Arnold.

What do Kookaburras have in common with possums, or big cats?

Well might you ask!

We found out the hard way a few weeks back when a kookaburra collided with our ute in country NSW, smashing into the passenger window along the highway.

We'd been looking for big cats after receiving numerous reports from a location, but had only seen cattle, kangaroos - and now a kookaburra!

We circled back for the unlucky bird and found him - a forlorn heap of feathers, beak open in shock, eyes unblinking. We didn't hold out much hope for him but picked him up anyway to preserve him from opportunistic predators such as cats and foxes.

Halfway home he blinked his eye, and three quarters of the way home he sat up, looked around and seemed (almost) ready to fly the coop. We pulled over to release him but he couldn't go far and flopped around in the grass. Back into the car he went.

En route home we touched base with WIRES (Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service) and left a message on their volunteer hotline. We got a call back just before we pulled into the driveway, giving us the details of a local WIRES volunteer who could help out.

Importantly, our helpful caller also told us we were lucky we hadn't released the kookaburra away from its home range. Kookaburras, she told us, didn't like interlopers and a family of kookaburras would have no problem swooping in and killing/dismembering a stranger. Yikes! For more excellent information about how to care for crook kookaburras, go here.

Possums are similar. many people in Australia try to have possums relocated away from their homes, after evicting them from roof cavities. This rarely works. What happens is the homeless possum often has to fight it out with a resident possum in a new territory, leaving them vulnerable to the attacks of cats and dogs. If you have a possum problem, it's much better to erect a possum box (a new house) on a tree for your problem possum, then everyone can (almost) peacefully co-exist.

After examining him for injuries/discharges (there were none), we brought the kookaburra inside and put him in a box with a towel over the top. We kept him overnight and the next morning,after taking the towel off, he hopped onto the edge of the box and took flight...straight into our kitchen window. K-thunk! Ouch! Well, at least we knew his wings were working...

Before we left we dribbled some water on his beak to make sure he wasn't dehydrated, then we popped him into the box and commenced our 300km drive BACK to where we had first encountered him. We pulled off the highway down a side road and set up the box in the grass, taking off the towel. Then we gently picked him up and perched him on the side of the box so he didn't hurt himself trying to get out.

It was all over in the blink of an eye. One minute he was there, the next he'd taken wing into the nearest tree. We heard other kookaburras 'laughing' (a common description for their cackling call, which sounds like raucous laughing) nearby and knew he'd found his family.

And yes, we did feel all warm and fuzzy (and mildly guilty for - unintentionally - driving into a startled bird's flight path). Hopefully next time he'll lift his trajectory!

Aboriginal thylacine rock art uncovered

Two Aboriginal rock paintings of Tasmanian Tigers (Thylacine cynocephalus: dog-headed pouched-dog) have been found in a hidden art gallery in the Northern Territory.
The paintings were found within an "art gallery" spanning 20,000 square kilometres of Indigenous Jawoyn land from Katherine up to remote Arnhem land.
Jawoyn Association Cultural Manager Ray Whear is convinced it's the extinct animal. The paintings will be included in a database destined to be the largest indigenous rock art collection in the world.

Another thylacine sighting - Victoria 2009

Tasmanian tiger sighting claimed

Posted on June 2, 2009, 6:06pm

A Donovans man says he saw an animal on Monday afternoon that resembled a Tasmanian tiger.

Richard Elliott was driving along Dry Creek Road toward Princess Margaret Rose Cave when he observed the mystery animal near a pine plantation about 3.30pm.

"At first I thought it was a fox, but it was too long and gangly," Mr Elliott said. "It had a long tail; it definitely wasn't a fox."

Mr Elliott said the animal was definitely not a dog or a cat either. It moved into the bush too quickly for him to determine if it had stripes.

Mr Elliott said the animal was long and skinny, with exposed ribs.

The Tasmanian tiger, or Thylacine, is believed to have become extinct when a captured animal died in 1936.

There have been no officially verified sightings of a Thylacine in mainland Australia, but many unconfirmed sightings have been reported in the South East of South Australia, Western Victoria and South Gippsland.

http://www.borderwatch.com.au/archives/2972

Thylacine sighting - Victoria, 2005

Read about an Englishman's brush with a crypto legend:

On January 17, 2005, Richard Cooper saw a thylacine in the Great Dividing Range east of Melbourne.

"It was daylight, mid-afternoon. Fifty yards ahead of me an animal crossed the track slowly. It was Golden retriever size, as clear as day, and I could see the set of impressive stripes down its back. It was a Thylacine. I felt very fortunate enough to have seen it.”

http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2009/10/neil-arnold-thylacine-sighting.html