Thylacines

The Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) was thought to be extinct, but many believe that it still survives, both in Tasmania and on the Australian mainland. I discuss the fabled marsupial's chances of survival post introduction of the dingo to the continent, and how the recent bushfires may have further impacted its chances.

The extinct Thylacine Thylacinus cynocephalus, also known as the marsupial wolf
or Tasmanian Tiger, is an iconic part of Australia’s natural history. The latest surviving
member of the diverse family Thylacinidae, the thylacine was widespread across mainland
Australia during the Pleistocene but by 3200 ybp it was restricted to Tasmania.
Persecuted by farmers, thylacines are thought to have gone extinct in the wild by the
1930s, and the last surviving captive animal died in 1936. Despite much public interest
and numerous popular accounts, the ecology of this iconic Australian species is not
well known. Though huge numbers of animals were killed during the extermination of
thylacines from Tasmania, very few useful specimens exist in collections. For palaeontologists,
access to comparative material is important but not always practicable. The
purpose of this atlas is to provide a comprehensive record of the skeletal anatomy of
the Thylacine to provide researchers a useful reference for comparative studies.

This report examines the history and significance of indigenous companion animals within traditional Aboriginal society and in early Euro-Australian settlements. Working from historical photographic and anthropological records, the project constructs a visual and written record of these often-transient human-animal relationships, including cockatoos who spoke in Aboriginal language; companion brolgas; and the traditions of raising the young of cassowary, emu, and dingo. It explores different pathways towards shared human and nonhuman animal spaces and how they found common ground outside of a contemporary model of domestication.

Images of animals we no longer share the world with carry with them a discordant sense of life as simultaneously tangible and elusive. Any attempt to read sense into anthropogenic extinction, or deliberate or careless extermination, forces us to negotiate our positon in relation to these deaths: how do we remove ourselves from such killings; how do we come to grips with the way we are connected to or have gained advantage from the deaths of these others? For Australians, and particularly Tasmanians, the figure of the thylacine provokes an uneasy and unhappy connection with the very recent past. At the same time, however, images of the thylacine provide an iconic symbol of Tasmania and Tasmanian officialdom, and of extinction as a force often traceable to human actions. Carol Freeman’s Paper Tiger: How Pictures Shaped the Thylacine brings a critical historical perspective to the way we perceive and conceive of thylacines, chronicling the transformation of the image of the thylacine from colonial metonymy to Tasmanian metaphoricity, illuminating the way meaning has played out during the period from the commencement of British settlement in Tasmania in 1803 to the present day, with the fateful date of 7 September 1936 being brought to bear on time before and after the extinction of the thylacine.

Two Russian warships visited the fledgling British island colony at Hobart Town in 1823. Brothers Mikhail and Andrei Petrovich Lazarev skippered the two Russian warships - Kreiser and Pagoda. They were en route from Kronstadt in Tsarist Russia to Sitka in Russian Alaska, travelling via Terra del Fuego). They made a three week victualing and exploratory sojourn in Tasmania. Four accounts - the two commanding Lazarev brothers, the surgeon Petr Ogievskii and the teenager midshipman Dmitrii Zavalishin - are presented in this book. Van Diemen’s Land “clad in beautiful green” impressed the visitors favourably. “The Derwent River and the adjoining D’Entrecasteaux Channel undoubtedly form one of the most spacious and beautiful harbours in the world”; Captain Mikhail Lazarev continued his praises “the climate of Hobart Town is very healthy... nowhere do I recall our crews having so improved in health and strength as during our three-week stay in Port Derwent - and that despite their working every day, and pretty hard at that”. Captain-Lieutenant Andrei Lazarev wrote: “A pleasant variety of nature is everywhere visible in the environs... The soil is very fertile ...here domesticated stock can feed year round on fresh and sweet field grass... The lot of exiled prisoners here is such that they cannot be considered unfortunates, by any stretch of the imagination”. Dr. Ogievskii goes on to record how “… the mildness and beneficence of the local climate deserve our wonder. Not a tree is stripped bare by the winter’s cold, nor a blade of grass dried up by the torrid sun. And the happy effects of such a clime are also felt by the settlers who, though possibly sent out for a crime ... even praise the destiny that brought them to such a country ... where even the most seriously ailing finds relief and a complete cure”. Zoological specimens were collected including the pelt of a thylacine (Tasmanian tiger).