The Pair in the Lair
_The Pair in the Lair is a Stage Puppetry performance written by Karin Cox, performed by Brett Campbell and illustrated by Thomas Hamlyn-Harris. It tells, in rhyming verse, the story of the extinction of the Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger, which vanished from the island of Tasmania in the early 1900s. Despite many efforts to search the Tasmanian Wilderness in the hope that some Thylacines still exist, not a single wild sighting of this creature has been verified since the last Thylacine died in a zoo in Hobart in 1936.
The Pair in the Lair
More about the Tasmanian Tiger
The Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger, was the only animal in the family Thylacinidae and was first described in 1807 by George Prideaux Harris, who based his description on two male specimens that had been trapped in Tasmania using kangaroo meat. Farmers in the new colony of Van Diemen’s Land, or Tasmania as it came to be known, in the late 1700s and early 1800s knew all too well about the Thylacine’s liking for meat. It became known as a sheep and chicken killer as early as 1824.
What did it look like?
Although dog or wolf-like in appearance, the Thylacine was a carnivorous marsupial more closely related to the Tasmanian Devil, or to other small Australian dasyurids such quolls, than to the canine wolf or dingo. It had a backwards-facing pouch, similar to the pouch of the wombat, and distinctive stripes on its back. Unlike the tail of a dog of a dingo, the Thylacine’s tail was partly rigid and could not be wagged. It was also remarkably agile and could leap 1.8–2.4 m up walls or along the cross-beams of roofs. Sight and hearing were its most important senses, and it is possible that it had excellent night vision, which enabled it to hunt in the dark. Fossils show that the Tasmanian Tiger also once lived on Australia’s mainland, before the arrival of the dingo about 4000 years ago, which may have led to its extinction on the mainland by forcing it to compete for food.
Today, the Thylacine is known only from history. By the 1920s, it had all but vanished from its habitat. The last known living Thylacine died in Hobart Zoo in 1936. The tale of its extinction is a sad one, because there was a lot that farmers and the government could have done to prevent the Tasmanian Tiger from becoming extinct. Even as early as 1868, naturalist John Gould wrote: “When the ... small island of Tasmania becomes more densely populated ... the numbers of this singular animal will speedily diminish ... extermination will have its full sway, and it will then, like the Wolf in England and Scotland, be recorded as an animal of the past...”
Hunting and bounty schemes, introduced by the Van Dieman’s Land Co and the Tasmanian Government in response to farmers’ complaints about it eating their livestock, led directly to this mammal’s extinction.
Click on the play button of the media file below to listen.
Check out Thomas's site at Skidaddle games or listen to more of Brett's music here.