Book Review: Lure Of The Thylacine by Col Bailey

By Mike Williams

Easily Col Bailey's best book so far, Lure Of the Thylacine is now out, the second of three planned books dedicated to the Thylacine. Get your copy HERE.

The passion and dedication that Col has put into this subject astounds me.

As engrossing as the stories are, what is perhaps the saddest thing is that they show you how ignorant people were, sometimes, in those days when they encountered these poor animals.

There are 64 punchy short chapters on Tiger encounters and stories, some that do end happily, at least for the tiger!

Professor Mike Archer has been so impressed with Col's work that he happily accepted the request to write a really thoughtful introduction.

Col's first book started when Col interviewed Reg Trigg back in 1980.

The tiger is still out there and the Lure Of The Thylacine will never go away.

The Tasmanian Tiger: Extinct or Extant? makes Top 20

Great news!

The Tasmanian Tiger: Extinct or Extant? has made Loren Coleman's Top 20 list of best cryptozoology books for 2014.

Cryptomundo recently featured a guest blog post by anthology editor Rebecca Lang:

The last Thylacine in captivity died on September 7, 1936, ironically just two weeks shy of the species receiving protection status. In 1986, 50 years later, it would be declared extinct. By international standards it no longer exists, and is just another marsupial ghost haunting the Australian landscape following European settlement.

While Benjamin is often symbolically referred to as ‘The Last Thylacine’, in all likelihood the species persisted in the Tasmanian wilderness well into the 1930s, possibly until the 1950s. In 1980 then-Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife officer Steven Smith conducted a detailed study of sightings between 1934 and 1980, concluding of the 320 sightings, just under half could be considered good, if inconclusive.

Judging by the thousands of sightings logged by government departments and private research groups since that time, however, it may still roam remote parts of Tasmania...

Fresh bid for evidence of Tasmanian Tiger

There is to be another bid to search for evidence that Tasmanian tigers are alive and well.

Representatives from the UK-based Centre for Fortean Zoology will join local searchers venturing into the wilderness of Tasmania's north-west.

The British cryptozoologists have previously tried to find Australia's so-called "big foot", the Yowie.

Expedition member Tony Healy says the team will use a range of equipment.

"[We'll have] a lot of trail cameras, game cameras and we've all got infra-red devices... just spotlighting, looking for tracks," he said.

The group will break into small parties to stake out different areas.

Long-time tiger enthusiast Col Bailey has spent decades trying to find evidence that Tasmanian tigers still exist.

He has reservations about a group of 10 people searching together.

"That's a lot of people to take into the field at the one time because low numbers is essential as far as I'm concerned in this and they also say two weeks they're going to be out," he said.

"Well, two weeks is nearly not enough time, you really need three or four weeks to do this properly."

The centre, founded in 1992, is a not-for-profit group set up to investigate unusual or extinct animals.

The last Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, died in a Hobart zoo in 1933.

The carnivorous marsupial was widely hunted by early settlers trying to protect livestock.

Read more at the ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-30/extinct-or-elusive3f3a-fresh-bid-to-find-tasmania-tiger/5057664

Archer: Col Bailey's thylacine sighting credible

Noted zoologist Professor Mike Archer, a former director of the Australian Museum, has said despite his professional scepticism, he respects Tiger Hunter Col Bailey's theory that a population of thylacines still exists in Tasmania.

In a recent interview with ABC Radio, Archer and Bailey talked about Thylacines and Col's new book, Shadow of the Thylacine, and his sighting of a Thylacine in the Weld Valley in Tasmania.

"Of course I want to believe in Col's story...every fibre in me resonates along with the same view that Col has...this is Australia's king of beasts, this is the most magnificent creature Australia has ever produced," Archer said.

"I feel...a sense of intense excitement that maybe somehow it has survived over the years. My scepticism, of course, and I have discussed this with Col, it is the scepticism of a scientist. It's very hard to test sightings, these are personal things...but when I know the man, like I know Col, that's not just a normal sighting, if you like, that's coming from a really credible person whose judgement I would never question. All I can say is I wish I'd been there with him."

Professor Archer is hopeful of one day reviving a project to bring the thylacine back to life by using DNA from museum specimens to clone them.

Listen to the interview here.

Col Bailey talks Thylacines and his new book

CFZ Australia popped in to talk to Col Bailey recently on a sojourn to the Apple Isle, Tasmania, just last week.

Thylacine seeker Col Bailey has a new book in the works due out next year, which details among other things his own sighting in southwest Tasmania's rugged bushland on an expedition in 1995.

"I was trembling like a leaf. It was surreal. I had no idea how I would react,'' Mr Bailey, 75, told the Herald Sun earlier this year.

He said the officially-extinct carnivore appeared while he was camping in Weld Valley and he followed it beyond a cluster of ferns.

"It was about 15 feet away and it turned and looked at me for several seconds, then backed away,'' he said. Mr Bailey said it stopped and looked at him a second time before it disappeared into the scrub.

Read the whole story here.