Tasmanian Tiger Fights a Losing Battle

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 64, 2 April 1937, Page 15

Tasmanian Tiger Fights a Losing Battle

Australian Prospector's Narrative of Hair-Raising Forest Encounter

THE trackless, uninhabited areas of Western Tasmania, where the serried tops of high ranges rise like the teeth of some gigantic crosscut saw, and the intersecting valleys are fllled with brown button-grass or densely-matted rain forest scrub, the remnant of a fastdisappearing, primitive animal manages still to find a living (writes M. S. Sharland in the Sydney Morning Herald). It is a rather precarious existence, ' because the small game on which it feeds is none too common, and sheep, which, since the first days of white settlement provided it with food, are far removed from this inhospitable territory in which it has been driven, to make its last stand. r^HE Tasmanian tiger, as this marsupial wolf is generally called, ls now so rare that in spite of rewards offered for its capture, some zoological gardens have for years been unable to procure a specimen for exhibltion. It ls not yet extinct, but in the last 10 years its numbers have been reduced to such an extent, both hy shooting and natural causeS, as to suggest that 10 years hence the last, living tiger will have disappeared. That is, if some action is not taken to re-establish its kind; and it is for this reason that the zoos desire to have specimens, for their object is to try co perpetuate the species by breeding it in captivity. Once shot on sight and harrle*, settlers' dogs, and made the victim organised hunts, the tiger gradually retreated from the neighbourhood of settlement — but not before creating havoc among sheep— and from a once extended range throughout the island, it has now taken refuge in the mountain country in the west and south-west. With it has gone another strange, indigenous, carnivore, the small but ferocious Tasmanian devil, though the last-named, having the advan-

tage of its smaller size, still Uves in places where the tiger has no chance of escaping guns and traps. The general characteristics of the Tasmanian tiger are more wolf-like than feline. It has a long and slender muzzle, short ears, and short, tawny-brown fur, and a rather clumsy-looklng tail, whlch does not emerge from the body sharply, like that of a dog or feline, but is thick at the base, and, tapering to a point, suggests that it was merged with the hind part of the body. It cannot wag. It is always stiff and carried perpetually in a slightly horizontal positlon. The animal's vernacular name obviously has been acquired by the presence of some 16 to 18 dark chocolate coloured, tiger-like stripes running vertically down the posterior part of the back, commencing about the middle of the back, reaching their maximum length on the flanks, and extending to the thick part of the tail. Its average size is slightly smaller than a dingo. JJEEP caves in cliff faces and cavities beneath fallen trees and scrub in dense gullies and ravines constitute the lairs of the marsupial tiger, and it hunts chiefly by night, though not strictly nocturnal. Fossil remains indicate that both the tiger and Tasmanian devil once lived in Victoria and New South Wales (vide the records of the Wellington Caves) ; while an animal closely allied with the tiger has been found in fossil form in South America, suggesting that the genus once had a much wider distribution. Stories are sometimes told of the ferocity of the Tasmanian tiger when cornered, but their authenticity is open to question. I have yet to meet the person who has been attacked or has seen someone else attacked. An old prospector of Western Tasmania, now living at Hall's Gap in the Victorian Grampians, once told me of a hair-raising "encounter" which he had with a tiger

while working in the wild country along the Savage River. Rain falls almost constantly ln these ranges, but heavier falls than usual had swollen the river to flood proportions. It was necessary for him to cross the river, but this could not be done in the usual manner, by wading. He then found a tree, nearly 100ft. long, which had been uprooted on one bank by the flood, and its stem and branches extended in the form of a natural bridge to the other. When nearly half-way across this slippery tree, heavily laden with pack and prospecting gear, he came face to face with a tiger, which had also chosen the same means to cross from the opposite bank. Having been warned about the so-called •ferocity of this animal, and meeting it in such circumstances for the first time, where they stared at one another, half in fear, half In deflance, each afraid to turn back because of the risk of slipping on the rain-soaked log, his feelings can better be imagined than described. About nine steps apart, man and beast- stpod as if affixed to the narrow, precarious bridge, tryipg to anticipate each other's next move. Neither was prepared to give way, although the tiger occasionally turned its head to look back to the shore it had just left, and then, hesitdtingly, at the tumbling water beneath. "yyEIGHTED by his impedimenta, the prospector dare not wave his arms nor move lest he lose his balance, and for the same reason knew that it was impossible for him to retrace his steps. The tension ended suddenly when the tiger made a, spring— not at the intruder • blocking its progress, but in the direction of the bank, some 30 feet away. It was a desperate bid, and failed. The animal landed directly into the water, and the prospector, still somewhat shaken by the experience, watched it struggling vainly in the turbulent river until it became engulfed in a whirlpool some distance down stream.