Chapter 22

The Final Call — Perhaps?

With the passing of Professor Heinz Moeller in 2009, the baton has passed to Dr Stephen Sleightholme, who is now without doubt the leading UK and European authority on the thylacine, best known for his pioneering database, the International Thylacine Specimen Database (ITSD). This excellent reference is the culmination of a major cooperative effort between museums and universities worldwide that hold thylacine specimens to produce the first totally comprehensive study of all that physically remains of this unique species. The database was first published in April 2005 as an electronic resource on CD-ROM, updated in 2006 and 2009, and completely revised in May 2011. In September 2005, the ITSD was presented with a Whitley Award, the first time in the history of the awards that a citation had been presented for a database. The ITSD2 has been designed as a free-access academic tool to promote and facilitate undergraduate and postgraduate research into the species.

With each and every thylacine specimen representing an extremely important part of Australia’s natural heritage, it is central to future scientific research that this compilation be held for posterity. Most importantly, the ITSD provides access to material that would otherwise be inaccessible to both the professional and amateur thylacine researcher desiring to further their knowledge of this unique animal. I personally have found it to be a most fascinating and invaluable research source.

I first made contact with Stephen when he visited Hobart with photographer Nicholas Ayliffe in November 2004. I found them both extremely friendly and we spent several hours together discussing all things thylacine.

I attempted, as I always do with overseas enthusiasts and researchers, to convert Dr Sleightholme’s negative stance on the chance of the thylacine surviving in Tasmania to one of ‘yes, it might’. Presenting the facts as I know them, I am sure that he was, at the very least, a little impressed with my enthusiasm and conviction that there remains an extant population in the state, albeit a minimal one. We have formed a good friendship that has endured to the present day, and one that I am sure will continue into the future. As a fellow colleague in the study and research of the thylacine, Stephen Sleightholme has been particularly helpful in sharing with me much information that I would normally find particularly difficult to access, and for this I will be eternally grateful.

I have long acknowledged that the likes of me and my fellow thylacine researchers will most likely never be fortunate enough to prove to the world that this remarkable animal does in fact still exist. It will probably be a foreign tourist with their new camera — someone simply in the right place at the right time — who will take the photo of the century. To have come so near on several memorable occasions and yet to have come away empty-handed is, to say the least, demoralising, but the satisfaction of knowing the animal is still out there is of considerable consolation. Because of what I have discovered about the thylacine over many years, I am now no longer content to concentrate my search in the shallows, for that is a complete waste of time and energy. The types of country where one must now search are those all but impenetrable areas that, because of their very nature, command total respect and vigilance. My own ongoing investigations are unfortunately now flawed by the physical limitations of advancing age. This then is the situation concerning the thylacine: it is still out there, of that I am in no doubt, but as I fear my chance to verify that may now have gone, it is therefore up to my fellow thylacine researchers to take up the challenge.

I have never sought fame and fortune; my sole aim is, in the first instance, to prove to the world that the thylacine still exists, and then to follow any consequences through to a satisfactory conclusion. The prime objective is to realise my dream of a successful semi-captive breeding program. As the old guard bows out, so the new breed of thylacine enthusiast emerges. The eventual champion of this cause may be yet to surface, and one can only hope that person will be entirely committed to handling the matter in a professional and capable manner. No educational credentials are needed to succeed in this quest; the only qualifications are a good helping of intelligence, the ability to take on the skill and patience needed in this quest, plus an abundance of good old-fashioned luck.

Meanwhile, despite my infirmities, my search and objectives continue…ad infinitum.