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Late last year, Dr Matthew Webb arrived at a patch of forest on the east coast of Tasmania expecting to find swift parrots feeding on the creamy white eucalyptus blossom and flitting, with distinctive speed, to nearby nesting trees.
Dr Webb has been studying these birds â the fastest parrot on Earth â and their summer breeding sites in Tasmania for more than 15 years.
Bob Brown Foundation campaigner Jenny Weber in a logging coupe in the Huon Valley, Tasmania. The area of old-growth forest next to it, which is typical swift parrot habitat, is due to be logged soon.
Credit:Jason South
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The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) says it will not offer any more words in the Tasmanian Aboriginal language palawa kani for dual naming purposes.
This week, Tasmania s Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) announced that new Aboriginal and dual names had been approved for 15 places in the state.
But Campaign Manager with the TAC Nala Mansell said none of the newly approved names are palawa kani.
“Over the years we’ve thought it was important to share some of our language words with the general public, which is why we participated in the dual naming process, Ms Mansell told SBS News.
But Nick Mooney, honorary curator of vertebrate zoology at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery reviewed and assessed the material provided by Waters.
In a statement, TMAG said Mooney had “concluded that based on the physical characteristics shown in the photos provided, the animals are very unlikely to be thylacines, and most likely Tasmanian pademelons”.
“TMAG regularly receives requests for verification from members of the public who hope that the thylacine is still with us. However, sadly there have been no confirmed sightings documented of the thylacine since 1936.”
The thylacine is believed to have been extinct since 1936, when the last living thylacine, Benjamin, died in Hobart zoo. But unconfirmed sightings have regularly been reported for decades.
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An Australian group of enthusiasts searching for extinct thylacines believes it has discovered three Tasmanian tigers, but its evidence has been dismissed by wildlife experts, who said the photographed animals were most likely pademelons.
The Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia (TAGOA), a non-profit organization dedicated to the research and discovering of thylacine – an extinct Tasmanian tiger, the last of which died almost 90 years ago – reported that it had photographed the three animals in north-east Tasmania.
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