Talk:Thylacine

Cryptozoology, Pseudoscience and Subculture

Earlier today, a user made this rather angry edit on the article space. Evidently the user's contention is that because I used the terms "pseudoscience" and "subculture" to describe the, well, pseudoscience and subculture for the reader, I am projecting negative feelings into this article. The problem is, of course, that cryptozoology's status as both a pseudoscience is extremely well referenced over at cryptozoology, and widely known in the academic community (where they've heard of the obscure world of cryptozoology, that is). I've asked the user to self-revert ([1]), but this has so far yielded only further anger aimed in my direction. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:55, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

While cryptozoology indeed is a pseudoscience, and cryptozoologists fairly can be described as forming a subculture, I agree with the other editor's assessment that it is unnecessary to add those two adjectives to modify the term "cryptozoology" when the term is linked to a Wikipedia article that describes cryptozoology more completely. Do you really believe that the absence of those two adjectives would lead readers to believe that cryptozoology is an actual branch of science? As for whether the other editor exhibited lack of civility with his explanation of why he eliminated the two adjectives as unnecessary, I assume that there must be some past history between you two, because I didn't find your edit, taken in isolation, as projecting negative feelings.

By the way, I also disagree with your elimination of two examples of cryptozoology books that discuss the thylacine. Those books weren't cited as sources of the truth of what they claim, but as evidence that, indeed, some cryptozoologists have taken an interest in speculation that the thylacine may be extant. WP:FRINGE does not prohibit citing proponents of fringe theories when the whole point of the sentence is that proponents of fringe theories have taken an interest in something. I'd be interested in hearing what other members of the editing community think of the deletion of those two sources. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 23:24, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• Awesome. Look, I think we are all aware that to serve information to the reader, a wikilink does not require two subsidiary links to accompany it. As a little demonstration, grabbing a random well-referenced paragraph from this article and giving it this treatment looks like this:

In 2017, Berns and Ashwell published comparative cortical maps, areas of minicolumns in the brain, of thylacine and Tasmanian devil (another carnivorous marsupial) brains, showing that the thylacine had a larger, more modularized basal ganglion, a group of subcortical nuclei. [...] The same year, White, Mitchell and Austin published a large-scale analysis of thylacine mitochondrial genomes, showing that they had split into Eastern and Western populations on the mainland prior to the Last Glacial Maximum, the most recent period of maximal ice sheet extent, and had low genetic diversity by the time of European arrival, the point at which European explorers reached the continent.

Why don't we do this? Because it's unnecessary - providing this information is the point of hypertext. You don't know the term, you click the link. (And no, cryptozoology is not a super-arcane term; nor would this approach be necessary even then.)

Why does bloodofox feel it is desirable to do so for cryptozoology anyway? Because they want to make sure that the reader comes away with a specific connotation of the area as early as possible. With respect to creating an NPOV text, this is somewhat sharp tactics verging on playing dirty.

Now if I am (apparently) sounding "angry", that is because I am exasperated. This isn't our first turn around the mulberry bush. I'm an ecological modeller; I hate anecdotal occurrence data. But I am repeatedly finding myself in a position like that of the average everyday atheist who is confronted with Richard Dawkins - you are in the same boat, you have the same aims, you just wish that the other guy wasn't such a scenery-smashing zealot about it. We can produce factual and mainstream-congruent articles without bending WP:NPOV. And adding extra "scare links" to one special wikilink is bending NPOV.

That's as much steam as I'm willing to expend on that point. If the community at large is happy with bloodofox's techniques, then by all means use them, I just think that every so often it's worth testing if that's actually the case. Over to everyone else.

About the removal of the two sources, we've been through that as well, multiple times, unfortunately without a clear consensus emerging. Some people believe that "in-universe" cryptozoology sources are fine for demonstrating that the field is interested in the animal, if not for any factual statements. Others (bloodofox included) will only allow sources that are actual scientific publications, or outspoken criticisms of the entire area. My repeated requests for an RfC about this continue to be turned down as "unnecessary", and so we get one of these tussles after the other. Hey-ho. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 03:27, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the above, it is well stated. Elmidae's responses here have been appropriate. The reaction by bloodofox was inappropriate. I thought my edit to the sentence would satisfy most readers, yet bloodofox lectures me about copyright violation; if I never get into trouble for that, bloodofox gets full credit for making that happen? Anyway …

I disagree, or am ignorant where I should not be, or I am misreading something: the fact in the last sentence in the quotation from the article seems to suggest the thylacine disappeared from the mainland several hundred years ago. cygnis insignis 08:29, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

What I think being irrelevant, as I'm reminded just now, here is the abstract and conclusions cited in the article. Just something muddled in a copyedit? cygnis insignis 08:38, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• I agree this behaviour is getting ridiculous (see also bottom of the Steller's sea cow talk page). We can't remove sources left and right before it is established that they are unfit for use at some wider forum. FunkMonk (talk) 06:05, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
• I cannot support either of Bloodofox's complaints. First point: I see absolutely nothing 'angry' in Elmidae's edit summary that Bloodofox has taken exception to, except to note what we all of us know: that plain text cannot carry emotion and that a simple sentence can be read in many different ways, according to the views/perspective of the recipient. But angry it was not, and the complaint of a failure of Civility on Elmidae's page was equally misjudged and unnecessary by Bloodofox. Using WP:CIVIL as a means to push against another editor to achieve one's own editing aims, so as to get reverted edits reinstated, seems somewhat underhand.

Second point: Bloodofox was not improving the article by inserting a clause after the wikilinked term 'cryptozoology', (namely, that it is "a pseudoscience and subculture) and is now wrong to complain here in this way about its removal, and then to seek consensus to reinstate it. As a term, cryptozoology is wikilinked to a very clearly-described page, and any user with Page Preview still enabled will see immediately, when they hover over the word, that it is indeed a pseudoscience.

Third point, and one where I'm possibly in support of Bloodofox's perspective: Quite why cryptozoology is given such prominence in this article viz-a-viz the existence of current Tasmanian Government legislation which still provides full legal protection to the Thylacine under the current Threatened Species Protection Act 1995, I really fail to understand. Despite being declared extinct, and being removed from CITES listing a while ago, I note that, as at September 2018, Thylacinus cynocephalus is still listed in Schedule 13 Part 2 of that 1995 Act (see here and here) and thus is still legally protected. Further investigation of Tasmanian legislation shows that the Thylacine was also included in a list of 'extinct in the wild' species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) (see here). I'm not sure if that totally supersedes the 1995 legislation, but it is clear that the Thylacine still benefits from legal protection today. (e.g. were one to be discovered today, and then trapped or shot, it would be an offence; setting out to trap one to prove its existence would also be illegal, I believe)

Now, I have no particular strong interest in either this marsupial's article (other than I once had to identify its skull in a professional exam for my Museums Diploma) or in promoting cryptozoology, but it seems to me the mention and emphasis of cyptozoology itself is counter-intuitive. This was a real living organism, that did exist until it was extirpated relatively recently - it's no folklore species like bigfoot. That a few cranky pseudobiologists have appropriated the Thylacine (presumably to give their pseudoscience a bit more credibility?) only seems worthy of the briefest of passing mention in the article, whereas the changing status, the remaining and legal protection under current Australian legislation, plus the history of failed searches up to the 1980s merits far more. I would suggest a text entry (with supporting references, of course) along these lines:

Due to the uncertainty of whether the species is still extant or not, the thylacine is regarded by some as a cryptid, nevertheless, as at September 2018, it remains listed as an extinct species but still benefits from having the full legal protection of the Tasmanian Government under Schedule 13 Part 2 of the Threatened Species Protection Act 1995, plus the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 13:01, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

I second the motion to add a paragraph on current legal protections of thylacine by the Tasmanian government in case the species is not extinct. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 16:32, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

The sources bloodofox removed are not reliable. We should not be citing books by Loren Coleman on articles like this. I wouldn't have a problem if those references were removed but I agree about removing the pseudoscience and subculture comment, it is obvious from the cryptozoology article that is linked to, so no point in repeating it. Psychologist Guy (talk) 16:35, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Errol Fuller's opinion as fact and undue emphasis

While cryptozoology apparently still has its proponents on Wikipedia ready to demand that the pseudoscience or subculture not be referred to as well, a pseudoscience or subculture (cue wall of personal attacks aimed at yours truly from proponents), it is under no circumstance acceptable to attribute an opinion as fact on Wikipedia. Let's please be mindful of this (e.g., [2]).

Secondly, isn't all this text about the pseudoscience undue emphasis and an over emphasis on a particular writer's opinion? We're talking about a tiny subculture of pseudoscience proponents here, vastly over-represented on the internet. :bloodofox: (talk) 16:51, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Glad you found the time to dismiss everything said above as "personal attacks" and label everyone as "cryptozoology proponents"; that gives me real confidence that we won't have to go through this again on a monthly basis for the forseeable future. - Regarding attributing statements to specific proponents, that is no more than proper and your latest edit seems entirely sensible. As for length, three short sentences with two references is hardly disproportionate coverage in an article of this length and detail. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:04, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. As always, stick to reliable sources and we won't have a problem. Opinions from the those outside of the usual cryptozoology apologetics crew also welcome. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:08, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Anyone whose sources are not quotes of the inversion of tinfoil hats claiming cryptozoology to the other way around. Pseudoscepticism, in another age it would rooting out and burning heresy, simpler times, all coming back into fashion I hear. cygnis insignis 17:22, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

I know—those pesky academics, always getting in the way, right? :bloodofox: (talk) 17:37, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

I see it as controlling the narrative, for a self sourced opinion, and, as another pointed out, tarring your nominated opponents, sometimes well intentioned users with justifiable contributions, and dismissing any qualified facts to retroactively justify a personal campaign and the incivility that entailed. That is how I view your contributions to discussion, you have assumed a license to edit war and that regular processes are exempt when you declare FRINGE in big blue letters. It is so average, and a waste of everyone's time. cygnis insignis 16:44, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Solution: find reliable sources and then you won't feel the need to resort to posting ridiculous stuff like this. :bloodofox: (talk) 16:55, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Get over yourself, and your bigoted judgement of cannot be a reliable source, I provide reliably sourced content and your comments are know-nothing bluster. cygnis insignis 17:09, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Unconfirmed Sightings Section: Very Poor Sources

Although this is a FA-class article, currently in the "Unconfirmed Sightings" section, we have the following sources:

• Tasmanian-tiger.com, complete with bolded comic sans stating "THIS IS WHERE WE BEGAN TO BE SUSPICIOUS OF THE STATE GOVERNMENT'S AGENDA" ([3])
• TheThylacineVideos (6 November 2009). "Film of a Possible Thylacine – South Australia, 1973" (Video) – via YouTube.
• Hall, Phil (16 February 2007). "The Bootleg Files: "Footage of the Last Thylacine"". Film Threat. Retrieved 14 February 2009. (dead link)
• Davis, M.K. (8 July 2013). "M K Davis discusses the 1973 film of a Thylacine on the mainland of Australia" (Video). Retrieved 3 April 2019 – via YouTube.
• Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia (16 September 2016). "Thylacine Sighting – Western Victoria 2008" (Video) – via YouTube.

Most, if not all of these, are obvious WP:RS fails that fall in the territory of WP:FRINGE (and no doubt falls under WP:UNDUE). If we're going to keep the information sourced to these items, we're going to need to find reliable sources (and there are plenty). Otherwise it just all needs to go. :bloodofox: (talk) 16:22, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

The New Scientist? Really? It's a rag, full of scientific distortions. Doesn't qualify as an RS, even if occasionally they have a good article.50.111.3.59 (talk) 14:39, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

The Reliable sources discussion board holds New Scientist to be generally reliable, with a little need to be careful about very contentious claims, but I don't think the claim is contentious - it gets reported in the BBC wildlife book, for example [4], and the New Scientist link lets readers easily look up the pictures themselves, which has obvious value. WilyD 13:45, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I added a line in the Unconfirmed Sightings section to reflect Business Insider's article on the Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment report of recent unconfirmed sightings. It's at least a reliable source for covering official public record. TheRedReverend (talk) 18:37, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Dead link

Hi All,

The link in the Citations list, currently numbered as 55, is a dead link. However, a search of the mother site (The National Museum of Australia) does show the article on a functional page.

Current Wiki link:

"Mummified thylacine has national message". National Museum of Australia, Canberra. 16 June 2004. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2006.

Here is the link to the article on the Museum's website:

Mummified thylacine has national message | National Museum of Australia https://www.nma.gov.au/about/media/media-releases-listing-by-year/2004/mummified-thylacine-has-national-message

I don't know if this is an HTML error on the article page, or if the Museum simply moved the article to a different URL on its website. At any rate, I don't know how to correct it. Could someone with more Wiki editing experience pls correct the link on the article page? Thanks. SaturnCat (talk) 05:06, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Done! Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 06:00, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

"Extirpated"

@Ddum5347: While the term "extirpated" is used in scientific literature for local extinctions without an implication of intentional destruction of the species, Wikipedia has a general readership, so most readers would assume that the common meaning of "extirpated" was implied. The Random House Dictionary defines "extirpate" as "to remove or destroy totally; do away with; exterminate." Thus, to a general reader, seeing that the thylacine was "extirpated" in the Australian mainland would be interpreted as someone having exterminated the entirety of the population. That is not what occurred--the Aborigines did not hunt the thylacine to extinction in the mainland (nor kill it off to protect livestock, as European settlers later did in Tasmania). That is why "became extinct" is better wording for a general readership than "extirpated." AuH2ORepublican (talk) 12:17, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Ddum5347 really needs to stop drive-by changing every other article to their personal liking. I'm seeing these disruptive edits everywhere. You need to begin using talk pages before making controversial edits.- FunkMonk (talk) 14:27, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

"Extirpated" in a biological context means local extinction. While most extirpations happen due to human activity, not all of them do. I really don't understand why this is so hard to understand. Ddum5347 (talk) 18:23, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@Ddum5347: It seems that you did not read my comment above, in which I said that "extirpated" can be used in scientific literature to refer to local extinctions without controversy, but that a Wikipedia article has general readership and thus the unambiguous term "became extinct" would be preferable. Let me repeat what I wrote:

While the term "extirpated" is used in scientific literature for local extinctions without an implication of intentional destruction of the species, Wikipedia has a general readership, so most readers would assume that the common meaning of "extirpated" was implied. The Random House Dictionary defines "extirpate" as "to remove or destroy totally; do away with; exterminate." Thus, to a general reader, seeing that the thylacine was "extirpated" in the Australian mainland would be interpreted as someone having exterminated the entirety of the population. That is not what occurred--the Aborigines did not hunt the thylacine to extinction in the mainland (nor kill it off to protect livestock, as European settlers later did in Tasmania). That is why "became extinct" is better wording for a general readership than "extirpated." AuH2ORepublican (talk) 18:41, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Ddum5347 has form in repeatedly changing extinct to extirpated in many articles (e.g. see his edit-warring at List of mammals of South Australia). I raised this issue with him in this request on his talk page, quoting definitions from two reputable dictionaries (the Collins English Dictionary and the Macquarie Concise Dictionary). In the discussion @Nick Moyes: also raised his concerns, but unfortunately Ddum5347 has a habit of responding to criticism by blanking his talk page.

FWIW, here's the Wiktionary definition of wikt:extirpate, which gives as synonyms: annihilate, destroy, eradicate, exterminate, all of which also carry connotations of, or imply, direct human involvement and intention in wiping out a species.

While instances of the use of "extirpated" may occasionally have occurred in scientific literature, Ddum5347 has failed to provide a reliable source to back up his claims that extirpated is synonymous with the neutral term locally extinct, without it carrying these implications. Bahudhara (talk) 02:14, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Extirpate meaning locally extinct is common in scientific literature, and this discussion actually reminded me of the negative connotations. That said, in the particular use case here I don't see it as any more clear than "extinct in". CMD (talk) 03:36, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Extirpated definitely implies active removal of a species by man (whether intentional or accidental, such as over-collection/predator control), wheras extinct/locally extinct is a much more passive and neutral descriptor, and aleo far better understood, too. I would require a WP:RS to clearly show that direct and intentional human intervention had led to extinction via extirpation (and not just via habitat loss, general decline, or natural disaster) and I must comment that I very rarely see 'extirpated' used in the literature that I access. (I am keenly aware of its deployment, as I used it intentionally as a status qualifier only once in the Flora I publshed, specifically relating to the loss of one highly collectable orchid species in my region. Many other taxa had also since become 'locally extinct', but no others merited use of that word. But in all cases, the status code would have been the same, or else it would have rendered status lists too confusing'). I do not agree with Ddum5347's view of how the word can be used. I will also block any editor where evidence of edit-warring is clearly presented if it avoids disruption and personal opinions being insinuated into articles. Nick Moyes (talk) 07:36, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

You need a reliable source? Page 60: https://archive.org/details/conservationbiog00ladl/page/60/mode/2up?q=extirpation. You cling to dictionary definitions too much Ddum5347 (talk) 07:56, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Even in this ref that Ddum5347 provides, "local extinction" appears as the preferred term, and "extirpation" is enclosed in single quotation marks, so it's hardly a good example to support his argument. Bahudhara (talk) 22:37, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

New remains found

Wow, its a bit confusing at the moment but there are reports of remains that have been found and it is unclear if they are thought to be the one known as "Benjamin" or if they are later remains as they are female.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/05/tasmanian-tiger-remains-of-the-last-known-thylacine-unearthed-in-museum Mutley (talk) 09:27, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Not too confusing, apparently there was a short lived captive female after Benjamin, which is where the skin is from. FunkMonk (talk) 10:49, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks it looks like it. About the dates, so Benjamin died on 6th September and the new died one died on the 7th September or did they somehow give that date to Benjamin as they are close.Mutley (talk) 11:31, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Keeping precise death dates for animals largely seen as unwanted pests may not have been a high priority in those days. HiLo48 (talk) 23:05, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes it would have been nice if the powers that be from that time appreciated the fine line between "pest" and "one of the rarest and most exotic animals on the planet". Mutley (talk) 10:29, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

The ABC News article https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-05/last-tasmanian-tiger-remains-found-in-museum-cupboard/101733008 specifies that this was the last captive, which is sometimes referred to as "Benjamin" due to an old hoax. Direct quote: "It has long been believed that the last-known thylacine was a male, sometimes known as Benjamin, but Dr Paddle said that was a rumour peddled by a "bullshit artist"." In fact, there's a follow-up article (published today) dedicated to talking about the hoax which mentions Wikipedia as one of the major sites spreading the information -- we probably should do something about that. Arcorann (talk) 06:19, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Yikes, yeah, and I'm sure there'll come a more scientific report about this. FunkMonk (talk) 08:17, 6 December 2022 (UTC)