Thylacine (14 page)

Paddle notes that ‘at no stage in any of the official annual reports on the state of the [sheep] industry during these crucial years was the thylacine mentioned even as a minor problem of significance to sheep farmers'.
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The best-known anti-thylacine group, formed in 1884, was the Buckland and Spring Bay Tiger and Eagle Extermination Society, on the south-east coast. Members of the society paid a scale of rates (according to number of sheep owned) and from this kitty £5 would be paid for each adult thylacine and about half that for each cub. Records of its results indicate very poor kill rates of both thylacines and eagles, even though the Society sent a number of specimens to the Tasmanian Museum.
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Politically, however, this was a powerful rural body able to lobby its House of Assembly member, James Gray, to act on its behalf. The move to render the thylacine extinct was in this way formalised by making it the subject of parliamentary debate.

It was in the 1880s that a range of attitudes towards the thylacine first became evident. Newspaper editorials, letters to newspapers, the concerned voices of naturalists and the staff of Hobart's Royal Society Museum, who were convinced of the animal's growing rarity, indicated that not everyone considered it expendable vermin. Even some of those who did were beginning to appreciate the science of understanding the natural world:

The Curator of the Royal Society's Museum has just received, through the medium of Mr C. E. Davies, a large male specimen of the Tasmanian tiger, captured by Mr Joseph R. Green, of Nugent. In the letter which accompanied the donation, Mr. Green stated that the tiger was killed on Mr. Joseph Hodgson's estate, between Sorell and Spring Bay, and that its discovery removed the belief existing in the minds of many persons that no native tigers are now to be found in that locality. It is pleasing to note that country residents are beginning to take an interest in the Museum . . .
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Unfortunately that report no doubt came in handy for the pro-bounty lobbyists anxious to disprove the reality that thylacines were by now extremely scarce in the area. Other reports directly aided their cause:

A Tiger capture.—A correspondent writes:—‘On the 10th inst., whilst the brothers French, sheepfarmers residing at the Bluff River, in the neighbourhood of Stonehenge, were out on their run looking after and setting snares for catching tigers, they came upon one, and succeeded in rushing it into a snare set close by and caught him, and without a single scratch or hurt of any kind have now got the sheep killer safely caged at their homestead, and certainly it is a very nice specimen of the Tasmanian tiger, and is nearly full grown. Already a gentleman has made an offer of £6 for it, but which has been refused by the Messrs. French. These settlers have since they came to reside at the Bluff River killed and destroyed a great number of tigers, and still keep on catching and killing every year, and consequently their good work must be a great benefit to the sheep farmers of the district of Spring Bay, especially to those in the neighbourhood. The loss of sheep during the past 18 months has, however, been great, as the books of the sheep owners can tell, and no doubt is caused by the ravages made by the tigers. Settlers in the district are anxious to know something about the £500 [for the destruction of thylacines] their member moved for at the last session of Parliament, and hope that he will keep the thing alive at the coming session, and thus aid sheep farmers to eradicate the pest from amongst their flocks.'
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All the while the private Van Diemen's Land Company bounty scheme and its tiger men had continued to operate, between 1874 and 1887 making a total of 70 bounty payments for thylacine kills.
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Although more were undoubtedly killed but not presented for bounty, the annual average of five kills suggests low predation. That in itself ought to have cast some doubt on the rural lobby's assertions in other parts of the island that thylacines were almost destroying the sheep industry. But if a bounty scheme were to be extended to the whole colony, backed by government money, by how much would that annual sanctioned kill rise? And for how long would the thylacine population be able to sustain such a rise?

This advertisement first appeared in the
North West Chronicle
between 1909 and
1912. Whale's Head is now Temma, on the west coast.

Two motions in support of establishing a government bounty were ignored, but its backers persisted, until east coast farmer and House of Assembly member John Lyne succeeded in having a motion tabled. The crucial, final debate on the Bill to eliminate the thylacine from Tasmania—to make it disappear, just as the Aborigines of the island had been considered valueless and dangerous and therefore extinguishable—is a peculiar reminder that democracy's strength is also its weakness: it can be so easily abused from within. This was nothing less than an extinction trial, to determine the guilt or otherwise of a species. Following is the ghostly but vivid death sentence, being the Parliamentary proceedings as reported by the Hobart
Mercury
, 5 November 1886:

TASMANIAN DINGOES. The House then went into committee to consider an address to be presented to His Excellency the Governor praying for the appropriation of £500 for the destruction of tigers, otherwise known as Tasmanian dingoes.

Mr. LYNE in moving the motion, said it might be taken that 100 sheep were destroyed per dingo, and the destruction of 500 dingoes would preserve 50,000 sheep. He quoted some extracts in support of his contention that sheep were decreasing and dingoes increasing. What he would propose was that £1 per head should be paid for every tiger. It was no joke. He reckoned 30,000 or 40,000 sheep were killed annually by dingoes. They ran whole flocks down into gullies, and maimed more than they killed. The scientific name of the animal was
legunta
, and it was one of the greatest pests the colony had.

Mr. GREY supported the resolution, and pointed out that the inhabitants of Buckland and Spring Bay had formed themselves into associations for the destruction of these animals. The animals were allowed to breed on the Crown lands, and for that reason the cost of their destruction should be met by the Crown. In many cases they had become so numerous that Crown lands had been largely given up by the sheepowners, to the loss of the State.

Mr. DAVIES trusted that the hon. member's resolution would be carried, because he had many communications from his constituents about Avoca and St. Paul's [east coast] of the loss they sustained by the ravages of the tigers. He was quite certain that the State would gain much more than this £500 that it was proposed to spend in the destruction of these animals in the increase of sheep that would take place. He had been informed that sheepowners in the district he represented lost 20 per cent. of their sheep by the tiger, and hoped the resolution would be carried in the interest of the country.

Mr. FENTON opposed the resolution, and ridiculed the idea of £500 doing all the good that was expected of it. He did not believe that the Crown land runs had been given up on account of the ravages of the tiger, and attributed it to the low price of wool inducing sheepowners to give up the poorer runs they rented from the Crown. He contended that the vote could not do any good for the farmers which they could not do for themselves.

Mr. BRADDON said that if the loss was 50,000 sheep a year it meant £50,000 at least, and he could not see why the sheepowners should not spend this £500 themselves to make such a gain. It would pay the sheepowners to spend £15,000 to save themselves from such a loss. He would be very willing to assist the hon. member to quell this
leghunter
[a thinly-veiled reference to Lyne's sexual proclivities], but it was absurd to think it could be done by such a vote. It was wrong of the hon. member to drag in the Crown lands and heap the blame upon them. He should, in the language of the Attorney-General, take a straightforward course, and move a vote of want of confidence in the Government for not having caught the tigers.

Mr. SUTTON supported the motion, not in favour of the sheep-owners, but of the small farmers in his district. The Government should assist the efforts of private individuals who were already giving £1 or £1 10s. a head for the tigers in some places, as it would be more than returned in an increased quantity of mutton for the consumer.

Mr. PILLINGER said it could not be expected that private landowners should go on destroying these animals while they were being bred and were multiplying on the Crown lands of the colony. It was not only affecting the lease of Crown lands, but it was preventing the sale of Crown lands to a large extent. Landholders could not afford to pay for the destruction of tigers on Crown land. They were already paying largely for the destruction of the animals on private land. He had been paying £1 a head for dead tigers for years, and if the vote was given at the rate of £1 for £1 spent on the destruction it would greatly assist the landholders and benefit the whole country. He hoped hon. members would realise the fact that the question was one affecting the interest of towns as well as the country, and that the question would not be made a funny one, as the hon. member for West Devon had made it.

Mr. DUMARESQ could not support the vote, as he did not see that the tigers could be any more numerous now than they were formerly. Nor could he understand why they were not destroyed, if they did so much damage, by the sheepowners themselves.

Mr. HAWKES said as the miners of his district had driven these animals out into the hon. member's district by appropriating their natural food, it was only a matter of justice that he should support the hon. member; but he might shortly have to ask for a vote to exterminate another animal his constituents were suffering from—the yellow agony—and he would then ask for the hon. member's support.

Mr. BARRETT: What, the Chinamen?

The MINISTER OF LANDS said that after what had been said by the hon. member for Oatlands there was not very much for him to say. The hon. member for Oatlands said that there were over one million acres rented from the Crown by pastoral tenants, but he forgot to state there were millions of acres unoccupied, which were as much the breeding ground of tigers as the land occupied. He knew that lands were thrown up especially in the Lake districts solely because of the increase of those tigers. He gave particulars of the large amounts paid by owners of lands in getting rid of this pest, and viewing the Government in the light of owners of an extensive and valuable estate he did not think that the vote was out of proportion to what had been paid by others.

Mr. DOBSON hoped that the motion would be amended in order that the money might be spent only for the destruction of tigers upon Crown lands. So many extraordinary statements had been made as to the habits of this animal and its terrible ravages that he thought it would be worth while to refer it to a Select Committee to see what the facts were. Inasmuch, however, as they had granted public money for Californian thistle and rabbits, he did not think that the hon. member was wrong in asking the House to assist in the eradication of this pest.

Mr. W. T. H. BROWN said that the Crown lands were the chief breeding places of the tigers, who seemed to kill the sheep simply for amusement. Very often when a tiger was caught it proved to be a female with cubs, and it seemed as if she had killed the animals to teach her young.

Mr. LYNE, in reply, said he dealt with this matter as one affecting the whole colony, as if the country suffered it would extend to the towns. He asked £500 simply to see how the thing would work. He had a letter from a gentleman who said that he was a poor man, simply because of the destruction caused by those animals bred upon Crown lands.

Question put,—‘That the resolution be agreed to,' and the committee divided as follows:

AYES, 12—Messrs. Dodds, Fitzgerald, N. J. Brawn, Lewis, Mugliston, Davies, Sutton, Grey, Pillinger, Lyne, Hawkes, W. T. H. Brown (teller).

NOES, 11—Messrs. Braddon, Conway, Bird, Fenton, Young, Mackenzie, Hart, Hartnoll, Dumaresq, Barrett, and Crisp (teller).

Question resolved in the affirmative.

The resolution was agreed to, and reported, read a first and second time, and agreed to.

The thylacine thus fell, victim of outrageous statistical exaggeration, blatant untruths and the buying of the racist vote. The power and influence of a political group—wealthy landowners— won the day over reasoned consideration. Facts did not matter; they scarcely entered the debate. A strange fledgling democracy was at work, its ineffectiveness highlighted by a rural writer's letter to a newspaper:

Sir,—I see the honorable member for Glamorgan wants £500 of public money to destroy hyenas (so-called tigers). There are compartively [sic] few sheepowners troubled with those vermin, and it is no affair for Parliament to be troubled with, for it would be a great injustice to the whole country in paying for the benefit of a few wealthy sheepowners. The farmers could more reasonably ask for help to destroy the parrots, which are on the whole much more destructive,—Yours, etc. FARMER.
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