An official in Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife said the reason the sightings were kept secret till now was to protect the identities of those reporting the sightings. A second reason is the 'media frenzy'would wreck their family relationships.

We find these reasons spurious because the sightings could have been made public without revealing the identities of the reporters or the exact location of the sightings.

Further to this, the December 1998 was said by authorities to be too good to be true. Suspicion of the reporter continues with the statement: 'I will try and find out if (either men) had been to the thylacine display at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (BECAUSE) it might have given them a good idea'. This is a good example of officialdom's mania to discredit reports!

We suspect the real reason for the secret file comes from the logging industry which is hell bent on clearfelling Tasmanian native forests and replacing them with monoculture plantations and hence destroying the habitat of the tiger and other unique Tasmanian fauna (echidna, Tasmanian devil, platypus, potoroos, pademelons, wallabies, the Tasmanian grey kangaroo...not to mention birds such as black cockatoos, the white goss hawk, the tawny frog mouth, the Tasmanian currawong...also the Tasmanian fresh water lobster whose habitat is confined to streams flowing into Bass Strait.

This secret file was only released on the persitence of an ardent tiger hunter under the Freedom of Information Act.

The only evidence of the tiger's continued existence the authorities will accept is the animal itself. Even castes of tiger prints are rejected. It is probable that surviving tigers have survived through cunning and evolved genetics.

Authorities are willing to accept sightings of the recently introduced fox and instigate searches on the basis of these sightings. Perhaps remaining tigers have developed the cunning and stealth of the fox. USING THE SAME SAME METHODOLOGY OF THE 'AUTHORITIES', WE WONDER IF THE FOX REALLY EXISTS!