Thylacine (22 page)

From Gordon Graham, Swansea
It was just after the turn of the last century that the late Mr William Cotton came into the town of Swansea leading a Tasmanian Tiger, most people at the time were scared of the animal, and were amazed to see a person doing such a thing.

At the time Mr Cotton was living on a small property at Swansea named ‘The Hermitage', it was winter time, and the taking of kangaroo, and wallaby was permissable. So it was that trapping, and snaring was in full swing throughout the district.

William Cotton that winter had snares set about 4 miles west of Swansea at a place called ‘The Sugar Loaf', and on visiting these snares one morning found he had caught a tiger.

The animal appeared rather docile, and showed no signs of fight, so it was then that Mr Cotton thought of the idea of trying to get the animal back to Swansea alive so that he could show of[f] his prize.

After some consideration he cut a short pole about five feet long, and to the end attached a piece of rope from his carr[y]ing bag, and with a noose made on the end slipped it over the tigers neck, held him at bay, cut the snare, and set of[f] to Swansea leading the tiger with him.

He had great trouble to get the animal to travel, but after going a few hundred yards the animal started to act just like as if it was a dog, and followed along beside him for the rest of the way to Swansea with the least of trouble.

This juvenile, restrained by a collar, became a Hobart Zoo inmate. It appears to have
‘given up', as some trappers said happened when captured.
(Collection Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery)

Back at ‘The Hermitage' the tiger was tied in the stall of a horse stables with a collar, and chain, where it was fed, and watered from some time, and people came from near, and far to get their first glimpse of the large marsupial.

But after a few days the animal became very restless (know doubt wanting to get back to its own habitat), and one night jumped over the partition between the stalls, and choked itself, the chain not being long enough to let its feet touch the floor on the other side.

The late Mr Cotton was my neighbour after his retirement, and often told me his story—back more than forty years ago.

From Mrs Annie Jackson, West Wynyard
. . . As a girl of ten years old I took up residence with my parents at Rocky Cape. In that time thick Bush surrounded us. My father had cleared the Bush back about two hundred yards, and up the Back, We had the fowl house. Every now and then we were losing chooks, And the blame for this fell on the
Tiger Cats
or
Devils
.

Then one summer morning at about five thirty My Father after going outside, came back in, and in a whisper told my Mother and I to come quickly and quitly And look at
this
. Obeying his Instruction we moved to the Door And peeped around the Door. Prowling on the edge off the Bush up the Chook House was an Animal like a Big Mushroom coloured Dog. At this time he did not attempt to touch the Chooks. All of a sudden he came down toward the House.

We moved back into the Porch And he just passed by. But all of a sudden Dad Reckoned he got our Scent, And became aware of our presence. Because he took off, But we got a marvellous look at this light coloured Creature, with the Black stripes on his Back.

From Bruce Walker, Wynyard
I am probably one of few who can personally recollect having seen the last Tasmanian Tiger caught. The precise date I do not recollect, it having been recorded I believe at Mawbanna in the early 1930's. As I'm now approaching sixty this was before I had reached my teens.

This was during the depression years when many trappers eked a meagre livelihood snaring and trapping wallaby and possum or rabbits occasionally getting a tiger which they usually killed. There was however a local Wynyard identity Jimmy Harrison a collector of native fauna who found a ready market for the tiger at Australian Zoos, and paid trappers for live specimens.

Having secured the last one known, and which had a broken leg he called on my father Dr Gordon Walker to save it. He died in 1977 aged 86, having been a well known coastal surgeon for 1/2 century when Wynyard was the base hospital serving Penguin, Burnie, Wynyard & Circular Head municipalities.

I vividly recollect this seemingly vicious, snarling, tiger in its netted box which frightened me when I accompanied my father, however he soon quietened it. After covering the cage with bags he then threw in wads of cotton wool soaked in chloroform and it was quickly anethesised sufficiently for my father to splint its leg using wood and plaster. This process was repeated some weeks later to remove the splint and I believe the tiger was sent to Hobart Zoo.

From Gus E. Tubb, Malbina via New Norfolk
This is not intended to be a story of
maybe
but true facts. I saw my first tiger in the Hobart Zoo a long time ago. Since then I have seen it at Piper's River, Westerway, Fathers Marsh (Dry Creek, N. Norfolk) & Molesworth. The one at Molesworth has been here for over twenty years, which make me think there must have been more than one as I don't think they live that long. Last Feb. my son ran right into it crossing the road for water. You may remember it was very dry at that time & it was going to the creek for water. He—my son—was in his car & only a quarter of a mile from my home He rushed up home to ring the
Wild Life
so they could come and see for themselves. The answer was this WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO BUY THE PETROL TO TAKE US UP There was nothing realy done about it. It was a golden chance as it had Cyclone fence three parts of the way around the block. A Police Stock Inspector advised me not to report that we see this one at home as it would probably be hounded away. Here is a few things you dont know. Nothing else in the bush has a bright green eye round in shape. At night with the light it looks nearly twice as big as normal. One other thing when it kills & is not real hungry it will open the animal & make a very neat job of taking out the kidney's & fat & leave the rest. I have seen this
trade mark
several times on things as small as a native cat. One other thing few people know is that the tiger cant resist hot bacon fat. Every time we cooked bacon at the snaring camp he would come right in close & scare hell out of the dogs. The cooking fat smells a long way. It is common talk in the district that the tiger was shot & wounded a couple of months ago, but since the Wild Life people treated us like it did I did not trouble to report same.

From Kath Williams, Devonport
This is a true happening I am writing about. It concerns a woman the name being Mrs Myrtle Whittaker who lived at Scottsdale on the 10 mile track Road leading to Springfield.

We move to Scottsdale in the year 1952. Mrs Whittaker had been lost for a week now when they found her she claimed she slept under a log with Tasmanian tiger cubs. Well for that.

But, around 1956 we moved out on the Ringarooma Road on the corner of the Ten (10) mile track Moris House who had a mill there so we got to know Mrs Whittaker well as she only lived about 1/2 mile up from us. She claim that the tiger was around her hut so she informed the press & they came up (I think from Hobart) they camped the weekend at her place with flash camera etc. hoping to see the Tasmanian Tiger. Now she came to us, and ask if she could have a lend of our Bitch Dog. She intended to lure the Tiger to the Dog (being a Bitch). We did lend her the Dog & she tied it up for the week end. But sad to say no Tasmanian Tiger turn up. She was so convinced in her own mind that the Tiger was still around & claimed she often saw it. But it must have been a dissappointment to the Camera men & Press when none came around. This is a true happening & if you probably looked up the records you will find it so. As for the exact Date I could not tell but they are the years or thereabouts. Both were in the Newspapers. Mrs Whittaker being lost & her having seen a Tasmanian Tiger around her place.

From Mrs Ruby Lorkin (89 years old), Chigwell
Over one hundred years ago, during a depression, my father the late James Price was forced to leave his wife & family at Hastings, S. Tas & went with two companions, prospecting down Savage River, in the rugged west coast.

There were no motor cars at that time, so they walked all the way, each carrying a swag including a camp-oven & tent.

They lived on native animals, such as rabbits & porcupines (which are very tasty when skinned and baked, like suckling pig).

One evening near dark, a striped Tasmanian Tiger came creeping around near their tent & ate the scraps of meat, bones etc from the scrap-heap where they threw out their waste food etc.

The men watched from inside the tent, as she came every evening.

After about a week they noticed she was taking the food away in her mouth. They ventured outside, but could not get close to her, or tame her.

They followed her, keeping a safe distance behind, she led them to a large fallen tree, & underneath this, saw she had three young pups.

She glared, & growled at them as she saw them coming near her Puppies, so they decided not to approach any further, but she did not attempt to rush them, or bite them.

I think dogs & other animals can sense who are friends, & who enemies. the dog continued to come, each night to the camp-site, for food for her young ones.

The men left for home soon after this.

My father said he did not think Tigers were a savage animal any more than a house dog, which has gone wild, & will only attack sheep, & lambs etc when hungry.

I well remember seeing the last Tas Tiger at the Domain Zoo, in Hobart. They also had a tea-room there at that time, & it was a very popular walk for tourists, & Hobart citizens to go out there on sunday afternoons I think, if there any Tigers still living, the rugged Gordon River of the North West Coast would be the most likely place to find them. Of course, at the time I write about there were hundreds in the bush, & they were shot down, indiscrimately, by hunters, etc,

Its a pity we have lost so many of our Native Animals in this way. It is the same with Rabbits, Now they are talking of farming them for meat consumption.

We wake up too late.

The year 1985 is an important one in the thylacine story. Eric Guiler's
Thylacine: The Tragedy of the Tasmanian Tiger
was published, bringing together for the first time virtually all of the known scientific data on the animal. Guiler—once a zoology student of Professor Thomas Flynn—had exhaustively researched the Woolnorth records and interviewed many old-timers with thylacine experience. There is no indication that the book's timing was deliberate; the following year, 1986, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the last known thylacine. In zoological practice a species is officially deemed extinct if it has gone unrecorded for a period of fifty years. Guiler's theories and conclusions represent a major landmark in the thylacine story. His preface ends: ‘I am still searching'.

Two years prior to the Guiler publication, Tasmania's extraordinary Franklin River dispute was decided by a High Court ruling which enabled the federal Labor Government to kill off a state government-backed hydro-electric scheme to dam the river. Many development-versus-conservation clashes were to follow, with the thylacine to the fore when the long-simmering Tarkine dispute erupted. The Tarkine, in Tasmania's far northwest, is Australia's largest continuous area of temperate rainforest, spreading across the almost totally unpopulated areas of the Donaldson and Savage River catchments. Originally known as the Arthur Pieman Protected Area (the Pieman River is reputedly named after cannibal convict and escapee Alexander Pierce, who was a pie-maker), the Tarkine was renamed after its Aboriginal inhabitants, the Tarkiner people. The area has many sites of Aboriginal significance. Early in 1995 the Liberal government revived plans for bulldozing a road through it to link Smithton on the north-west coast with the mining town of Zeehan, north of Macquarie Harbour. Promoted by the government as a future tourist enhancement, it was dubbed by conservationists ‘the road to nowhere'. Its opponents said it was being built solely in the interests of forestry and mining companies.

The unsuccessful campaign to save the Tarkine operated at various levels. A direct action group, the Tarkine Tigers, came into existence (their first meeting was held in a room above Knopwood's Retreat), which took the thylacine as its symbol. Locking-on to bulldozers and other equipment became a common tactic, requiring police to cut the activists free. The giant ‘Save Tarkine Wilderness' banner with its drawing of a thylacine would then be draped in front of the inert machinery, while hours of road-building were lost. To many Tasmanians the Tarkine Tigers truly were feral, unpredictable, dangerous—a strange echo of the groundless fear the real thing had engendered in the nineteenth century.

There were many arrests. One arrestee, Bob Brown, spent five days in custody. He drew attention to yet another dimension of the conflict in commenting upon the new Regional Forest Agreements drawn up between Canberra and each of the states: