Read Carnivorous Nights Online
Authors: Margaret Mittelbach
Carnivorous Nights (47 page)
“That is beyond pathetic,” said Alexis as he squatted to scoop soil from beneath an uprooted tree trunk. “I usually don't get upset over the loss of an individual animal. To me the tragedy is when the entire species is gone. But that's so heartbreaking. The thylacine is considered a treasure now, and this individual was completely squandered.”
Alexis meant the tiger's life. But its body was squandered, too. The last thylacine's pelt and bones were not saved by any museum. They were cast away at the rubbish tip and allowed to disintegrate. The zoo itself closed the following year.
We thought about what David Pemberton had told us at the Tasmanian Museum. The Tasmanian
wilderness began on the island's five-thousand-foot-high mountains and ended offshore where sperm whales attacked giant squid on the continental shelf. It was all interconnected. The rocks, soil, and nutrients that flowed through the island's rivers were bits and pieces of Tasmania. Included in the outpouring were fragments of thylacines, too, their bones eroded over the eons, flowing across the landscape, seeping into poppy-filled paddocks, and pouring into the ocean.
Alexis had the right idea painting the thylacine with soil, leaves, bark, and seaweed. These organic materials held traces of the tiger, making their way through the island's circulatory system. Tigers were in Tasma-nia's trees. In the water we drank from the Styx. Even in the wombat and devil scat we had carried with us for weeks.
Perhaps the Tasmanian tiger was a blood feeder after all. It had taken a bite and left something behind that coursed through the aortic vessel, bored into the kidneys and got into the brain, infecting us with thylacine visions.
“I can't get the image of the forest flooded by Lake Gordon out of my head,” said Alexis as he picked up his Baggie of soil. “I've had dreams of swimming through the giant trees. I'll have to turn that into a painting when I get home.”
We had dreams, too. Of stripes in the grass and shadows darting through the bush. The tiger and Tasmania were obsessions we would never shake.
All three of us would like to thank: Judy Sternlight for her boundless enthusiasm and brilliant editing; Peter McGuiguan for being the stealthiest (and friendliest) carnivore in town; Mary Bahr for believing in tigers; everyone at Villard/Random House including Bruce Tracy, Libby McGuire, Carole Schneider, Simon Sullivan, Robbin Schiff, Tom Perry, and Vincent La Scala; copy editor Fred Chase; Joanne Cassullo at the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Fund for her friendship and generous support of this project; Darrin Lunde and Steve Quinn for taking us behind the scenes at the American Museum of Natural History; and Jay Gorney, Sheri Pasquarella, and Kristen Becker at the Gorney Bravin + Lee Gallery New York and Kimi Weart for their kind attention to the artwork.
This book would not have been possible without the warmth, hospitality, and patience of the people of Tasmania and the Australian mainland. Thanks to: Geoff King for turning the world's most beautiful coastal real estate into a nature preserve; Todd Walsh for revealing the secret world of the
tayatea;
Les Bursill for taking time out during a difficult period in his life to show us the tiger's past; Michele McGinity and Brand Tasmania for vital, muchappreciated support; Nick Mooney for invaluable advice; Maria Lurighi for a place to stay in Hobart; and Senator Bob Brown, our favorite politician on either side of Wallace's Line.
We would also like to express our gratitude to: James Malley; Col Bailey; Trudy Richards; Don Colgan, Karen Firestone, and Sandy Ingleby of the Australian Museum; Tony Marshall of the State Library of Tasmania; Jim Nelson, Danny Soccol, Alison Green, John Simmons, and the members of
the Launceston Field Naturalists Club; Androo Kelly, Darlene Mansell, and Chris Coupland at the Trowunna Wildlife Park; Suzi Pipes of the Wilderness Society; Chris Parker, Ken Wright, John McConnell, Terry Reid, and Brooke Cohn at the Tasmanian Parks & Wildlife Service; Warren and Betty Murphy in Arthur River; Richard Gerathy at the Cascade Brewery; Peter Althaus of Domaine A; Menna Jones and Kevin Bonham at the University of Tasmania; and David Pemberton, Leslie Kirby, and Peter West of Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
All of our friends and family at home and in Australia, including: Kay Clayton; Siabon and Shawn Seet; Sarah Reilly; Jennifer Soo; Peter Rathborne; Pamela Gregory; Nellie Castan; Ned Rockman; Sandy Rockman; Sara and Ashley Simon; Tazzy diZerega; Huma Baba; Diana diZerega Wall and Murray Wall; Gabrielle Wall; Raphael Wall; Varuni Kulasekera; David Quammen; Jack Schwartz at the
Times;
Ricardo Hinkle, Richard Sandman, John Denaro, Julie Rose; Mari Muki; Judy Sklar; Robaire Warren; Karen Bender; Matthew Testa; Frank, Paul, Mary, Gabrielle, and Stella Mittelbach; Mark Fresh; Jocko Weyland; Mark Binke; Anabel Ressner; Carole, Gregory, Ivy, and Lilianna Crewdson; Natasha and Liam; Ellen Levy; and Chris Vroom and Dorothy Spears.
1. a pe
CU
L
I
a
R
a
NI
maL
P
P
. 8–9, L. 36 and
LL
. 1– 7.
forty-second black-and-white film of the Tasmanian tiger:
This clip is available at
www.naturalworlds.org/thylacine/
. C. Campbell, “The Thylacine Museum.”
2.
ROC
K a
R
t
P
. 21,
LL
. 5–12.
The day was fine … Anxious for the slaughter:
Hugh Anderson, “ ‘Paddy’ The Sydney Street Poet,”
Labour History
, vol. 82 (May 2002), p. 137. The poem “Hacking Shark Tragedy” was written by Sydney poet Patrick Francis Collins in 1927 and distributed as a broadside.
5.
CROSSIN
g t
HE S
t
R
a
I
t
P
. 51,
LL
. 4–11.
The first day that we landed:
Philip Butterss and Elizabeth Webby (eds.),
The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads
(Ringwood, Australia: Penguin Books Australia, 1993), pp. 17–18. This version of the nineteenth-century ballad “Van Dieman's Land” was taken from “a broadside in the National Library” in Canberra, Australia. “Van Die-man's land” was an early alternative spelling of “Van Diemen's Land.”
6.
D
ay
O
f r
H
e
D
ea
D
P
. 56,
LL
. 5–11.
One of the few sad things:
“Help! There Is Livestock on the Road,”
Cradle Mountain & Lakes District Visitor Gazette
, vol. 1, edition 1 (2002), p. 10.
P
. 61,
LL
. 30–32.
“the Tasmanian devil ”:
Barbara Triggs,
Tracks, Scats and Other Traces: A Field Guide to Australian Mammals
(South Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 52.
P
. 63,
LL
. 5–7. “
For many people who visit”:
Triggs,
Tracks
, p. v. This quote is from the book's foreword by Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe.
7. t
H
e
RO
a
D
t
O
t
I
ge
RVI
LLe
P
. 74,
LL
. 8–24.
The recent sighting:
Nick Mooney, “Tasmanian Tiger Sighting Casts Marsupial in New Light,”
Australian Natural History
, vol. 21, no. 5 (Winter 1984), pp. 177–180. Used by permission of Nick Mooney. In 2004, Nick Mooney reflected on the intensive search for the thylacine following Hans Naarding's reported sighting in 1982:
In retrospect, the search was as thorough as the available technology and resources allowed, especially considering we chose to be discreet. Carnivores make extensive use of the area's many vehicle tracks which were muddy for months at a time, legitimizing the focus on such sites.
But an almost inescapable problem in finding footprints was the abundance of Tasmanian devils. This “omnipresent” species uses tracks and roads and is attracted to all manner of carnivore lures, following scent trails and quickly devouring carcasses. In these circumstances, the odd thylacine print or scat could easily be overlooked, distorted, or obliterated by devil (and wallaby) “noise.” (Nowadays we would make extensive use of DNA scat analysis and the much better automatic digital cameras.)
Devils are still abundant in the area but this might not last for long. An epidemic is devastating devil numbers and is likely to eventually turn up in the Northwest. This Devil Facial Tumor Disease might make conditions ideal for the recovery of any remaining thylacines, both drastically reducing competition for food and dens and likely predation on thylacine pups. (I'm sure
devils had a hand in making thylacines “functionally” if not biologically extinct: as thylacines got rare, devils became more common, and what was incidental predation of the odd pup may have become critical and unsustainable.) Ironically this disease may be the ultimate test of thylacines' extantion or extinction; a test I would much prefer never happened. Devils are every bit (if not more) the fantastic animal thylacines were, and the thought of losing them too fills me with dread.
An adjunct is that in wilderness areas we are using automatic digital cameras to assess devil populations—who knows what we might turn up.
The inland Arthur River area has changed dramatically in the past twenty years. Most of the complex eucalypt forests there in 1982 have been or are being felled and replaced by plantations, and the swamp forests are being cleared for agriculture. The consequent new roads and increased traffic have not produced anything of the quality of Hans's report, in fact almost nothing. The area was never ideal thylacine habitat, so it is possible the changes in the last twenty years were enough to tip the scales. However, there still remains much potential prey and I find it hard to believe thylacines could not persist in this landscape. I suspect, at best I was right and thylacines are not resident in the area. Or worse, I was wrong and they are simply not there—or worse still, not anywhere.
It is seventy-one years since there has been indisputable evidence of living wild thylacines and sixty-eight since any at all. There have been many searches, some unknown to the public and of excellent quality in what we think are the “best” areas. Sadly, all have come to nothing.
We are now battling a few foxes in Tasmania, a species that the devils' demise might allow to dominate the vertebrate landscape here forever. However, even a well-known species such as the red fox, if very rare, is extremely difficult to find by searching; it seems the rarer an animal the more luck plays in the finding. To me this somewhat humbling experience makes the thylacine question a little worth revisiting. If nothing else, it demonstrates how homocentric we have become in our assumptions that “if it's there, of course we can find it.” Let's hope there is still time for us to get lucky.
9.
HO
pp
IN
g
P
. 95,
LL
. 24–25.
“The wombat is a Joy”:
William Michael Rossetti,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Family-Letters with a Memoir, Volume II
(New York: AMS Press, 1970), p. 220. Originally published in 1895, this collection of more than three hundred letters is reproduced electronically in “The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Hypermedia Research Archive” at
www.iath.virginia.edu/rossetti/
. This online archive is published by the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia.
P
. 95,
LL
. 31–34.
I never reared a young Wombat:
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, pen and ink drawing in the collection of the British Museum, November 6, 1869. The drawing/poem combination is reproduced electronically in “The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti” at
www.iath.virginia.edu/rossetti/
.
11.
SUICID
e
H
e
N
P
. 115,
LL
. 8–15.
From Smithton to Marrawah:
Bernard Cronin, “The Way to Marrawah,”
Bulletin
, March 15, 1917.
13. a tige
R
HUN
te
R
P
P
. 142–43,
LL
. 32–34 and
LL
. 1–18. REPORT BY JAMES MALLEY: “The Report of the Search for the Thylacine that was conducted by Jeremy Griffith, James Malley, and Robert Brown” dated December 17, 1972, p. 16. [Unpublished.] Used by permission of James Malley.
15. L
IS
te
NIN
g f
OR
t
I
ge
RS
P
. 155,
LL
. 11–16.
Indeed, in neither its broad outline:
Michael Sharland,
Tasmanian Wild Life
(Parkville, Australia: Melbourne University Press, 1962), p. 22.
P
. 155,
LL
. 30–32.
“mainly nocturnal ”:
Dave Watts,
Tasmanian Mammals: A Field Guide
(Kettering, Tasmania: Peregrine Press, 2002), p. 32.
P
. 156,
LL
. 34–35.
“making a curious yapping”:
Sharland,
Tasmanian Wild Life
, p. 10.
P
. 158,
LL
. 23–25.
“is probably extinct”:
Triggs,
Tracks
, p. 49.
16. 1-300-f
OX-OU
t
P
. 165,
LL
. 2–3.
“kookaburra sits”:
Marion Sinclair, “Kookaburra” song (Larrikin Music Publishing, 1936).
17. t
H
e
R
e
D
f
O
g
P
. 182,
LL
. 12–15. J. E. Kinnear, “Eradicating the Fox in Tasmania: A Review of the Fox Free Tasmania Program” (March 2003).
22. myt
HIC
aL
CR
eat
UR
es
P
P
. 222–23,
LL
. 1–38 and
LL
. 1–20.
Palana, the little star:
Jackson Cotton,
Touch the Morning: Tasmanian Native Legends
(Hobart, Tasmania: O.B.M., 1979), pp. 17–18. Used with permission from Jane Cooper.
P
. 225,
LL
. 6–11.
Tasmanian aboriginal legend of the platypus:
Cotton,
Touch the Morning
, pp. 45–46.
24.
B
L
OOD
a
ND
S
L
OPS
P
. 237,
LL
. 18–24.
An exceptionally large proportion:
Steven J. Smith, “The Tasmanian Tiger—1980: A report on an investigation of the current status of thylacine
Thylacinus cynocephalus
” (National Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania, May 1981), p. 97.
P
. 238,
LL
. 10–13.
Sideling Aboretum:
public sign posted by Forestry Tasmania.
P
. 241,
LL
. 23–27.
What I viewed for two minutes:
James Woodford, “New Bush Sighting Puts Tiger Hunter Back in Business,”
Sydney Morning Herald
, January 30, 1995.
25.
B
ea
CH
es a
ND
B
easts
P
. 249,
LL
. 3–15.
A vast pulpy mass:
Herman Melville,
Moby-Dick or, The Whale
(New York: Modern Library, 2000), pp. 401–402.
P
. 249,
LL
. 16–19.
The first known sighting:
Richard Ellis,
The Search for the Giant Squid: The Biology and Mythology of the World's Most Elusive Sea Creature
(New York: Penguin Books, 1999), p. 257.
P
. 252,
LL
. 10–14.
Last known thylacine died:
Tasmanian Museum exhibit film.
P
P
. 255–56,
LL
. 32–36 and
LL
. 1–16.
It was our business to squeeze:
Melville,
Moby-Dick
, pp. 600–601.
26.
IN
t
H
e
N
ame
O
f ge
OR
ge p
RID
ea
UX
H
a
RRIS
P
. 259,
LL
. 21–26.
Another day I ascended:
Charles Darwin,
The Voyage of the Beagle: Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S.
Beagle
Round the World
(New York: Modern Library, 2001), p. 400.
P
. 260,
LL
. 4–8.
In some of the dampest ravines:
Charles Darwin,
The Voyage of the Beagle
, pp. 400–401.
P
. 262,
LL
. 20–25.
We know kangaroos:
Barbara Hamilton-Arnold (ed.),
Letters and Papers of G.
P
. Harris, 1803–1812: Deputy Surveyor-General of New South Wales at Sullivan Bay, Port Phillip and Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land
(Sorento, Australia: Arden Press, 1994), p. 59. The letters of G.
P
. Harris are held in the Manuscript Collection of the British Library, London (Mss Add 41556 & 45157).
P
. 263,
LL
. 3–4.
the most beautiful:
Hamilton-Arnold,
Letters and Papers of G.P. Harris
, p. 61.
LL. 14–15.
This land is cursed:
This quote is commonly attributed to
Dirk [Dirck] Hartog, a Dutch explorer and the first European to land in Australia.
LL. 20–24.
“Black Swans ”:
Hamilton-Arnold,
Letters and Papers of G.P. Harris
, p. 61.
LL. 28–35.
The hills and sides:
Hamilton-Arnold,
Letters and Papers of G.
P
. Harris
, p. 66.
P
. 264,
LL
. 9–14.
My dearest mother:
Hamilton-Arnold,
Letters and Papers of G.
P
. Harris
, p. 72.
P
. 265,
LL
. 16–22.
I take the liberty:
Hamilton-Arnold,
Letters and Papers of G.
P
. Harris
, p. 89.
LL. 31–34.
“ That from which this description”:
Hamilton-Arnold,
Letters and Papers of G.
P
. Harris
, p. 90.
P
. 266,
LL
. 12–17.
The history of this new:
Hamilton-Arnold,
Letters and Papers of G.
P
. Harris
, pp. 90–92.