Month: May 2024

The Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger, despite its appearance, was not related to canines. It was a marsupial, and carried its young in a pouch, but facing backwards. Science now tells us its closest relative in Tasmania was the Tasmanian Devil, and two species of quolls, all much smaller animals, unalike in appearance..

It also existed on mainland Australia. It is unknown how many thousands of years it roamed Tasmania, with its only predators being the respectful Aborigines, who hunted and ate from need, not greed. There is no evidence they were sought as food, in any event, being carnivorous, with apparent finicky preferences for certain organs of their prey..

There have been no confirmed sightings since 1936, when “Benjamin” (possibly shown above) died in a Hobart zoo.

The invading colonists placed several bounties upon them through the 1800s, believing, or claiming they were a threat to sheep, a conjecture which recent scientific study has opposed. Hence they lasted only about 130 years after the invasion of “civilization”. Similarly, Tasmania was also home to a native Emu, smaller than its mainland cousin. By only fifty years of colonial occupation, they were scarce in the wild; the last one died in captivity in the 1870s. Most Tasmanians today are unaware they ever existed. All we can surmise is that they must have been edible.

Along with the shameful and evil Human depredations our ancestors committed on this island, utter and profound sins against Nature, including the wholesale murder of trees and habitats that were alive and thriving centuries before they inflicted their ignorance and arrogance, the passing of the emu and thylacine is enough to engender in me a raging fury and hatred towards the acts of my ancestors. This, on top of the outright lies kids of my generation were routinely told at aschool, that the original inhabitants were entirely extinct, and those on the mainland were not far behind.

Is it wrong to despise one’s ancestors? Surely a civilized race respects its elders? I see nothing to be proud of in our history.

This anger is what has engendered my series of paintings, “Thylacines Out of Season”. I cannot bring them back, nor their previous custodians, but I can at least attempt to dream them back again. “What If?” they were still around. There are old stories of their domestication, and many claims of sightings.

The search may be futile, talk and hopes of cloning also, but the Shame hovers guiltily over this land, and may the age-old Game of Soldiers and Convicts become extinct here and everywhere.