I had written that “the images we had available were intentionally degraded before print publication in order to protect the integrity of the originals“.

That is partly correct, partly incorrect. Yes, they were degraded, but it can’t be said for certain whether the degradation was intentional or not, nor whether there was a reason for it (if intentional).

According to Mr Emmerichs (personal communication, 2006), the degradation occurred when the images went to print, but not at his request, and not with his knowledge. He certainly wanted better quality versions to go to print, and communicated to me he couldn’t understand why the printed quality was so poor.

The error in my comment came about because I knew the images were degraded but I made the assumption that Mr Emmerichs was the person responsible and that he intended to protect the integrity of the originals. (Sorry).

Chris.

Does anyone know where I could write and buy this magazine? I did searches based on the letter at the top of this page. Is there some other place to contact?

This also makes me wonder if the writer of this letter is affiliated with the magazine that published the photos. If so, it is odd that there is no way to buy the magazine.

That said, those photos were EXTREMELY poor quality and I find it horrible that (as “youcantryreachingme” post # 13 claims) the images were intentionally degraded before print publication to “protect the integrity” of the originals.

Sounds fishy to me “oh well, you can’t see it in the newspaper and magazine versions, well that means you have to buy this book when it comes out to see the original, clear versions of the photos.”

Sounds like our thylacine folks have caught the dreaded “Mawas Fever.”

Thats fantastic.

Imaginary philanthropy is never dead..

I am sorry to see the photos go from this site, however. Whereas I could not see anything in them until the overlay series with a known archival Tasmanian tiger photo, they are nonetheless of enormous interest. Just because they are poor quality here does not mean that the originals are of equally poor quality. These were scans of newspaper copies that had been distorted. I have no idea how the originals really appear.

Thylacine experts, including Col Bailey who posted here, feels that these photos are of a thylacine. While I have no idea if they are of a thylacine or not, I am hoping that they are what the photographer says that they are.

Too bad that the person who sent this email is not allowing for scientific study of the photos, which usually has nothing to do with copywrites. Of course, I have no more way of knowing if the writer of this email is genuine anymore than I have of knowing if the photos themselves are genuine.

I hope I can see the originals, to see better versions of the photos than we could get here. I am also looking forward to Col Bailey meeting with Klaus Emmerichs later this year, when they are planning to look for thylacines. Let’s hope that Col keeps us posted here on how that works out. In the meantime, I will miss checking out these blurry photos every day.

Because they had to return to work in Germany, and because their English was not as good as Emmerichs’ brother’s, and because his brother lived in Australia, they left it to his brother to handle, and it was the brother who then decided to see if he could sell them. This has been clarified in both media reports and the comments on earlier posts here on Cryptomundo (in particular, comments by Col Bailey).

And again – for those who don’t see the animal, keep in mind the images we had available were intentionally degraded before print publication in order to protect the integrity of the originals.

Field experts who saw the original images had no trouble seeing a thylacine in both photos.

Even though I have not seen the originals, I can see the animal quite clearly in the degraded versions.

Perhaps that’s because I’ve been reading about thylacines (and seeing photos and videos) on-and-off for about 10 years?

(I know, I know, you’ll answer “perhaps it’s because you’re seeing what you want to see!” But do keep in mind that biologists who viewed the originals had no problems saying they clearly showed a thylacine!)

As to the actions of this magazine in writing to Cryptomundo? Well technically, if they share the exclusive publishing rights with the Tasmanian newspaper, then they have every reason to ensure they (together) remain the sole publishers. What we don’t know is whether or not they *do* own that right (and whether or not they paid for it, for that matter!)

Chris.