Chapter 4

The Evolving Quest

As the sightings in South Australia gradually faded from public attention and local interest in the Tasmanian tiger all but evaporated, I would still occasionally come across someone who had an interest in the animal. There are two such people who stand out above all others: an ageing Adelaide resident, Mr Thompson, and an old Tasmanian bushman, Reg Trigg.

My work as a landscape gardener put me in touch with many interesting people from all walks of life, and while some declined to talk at length, others were only too willing to stop and have a chat. As I was self-employed and working my own hours — sometimes 11- or 12-hour days during the summer months — if the topic was interesting enough, I would always make time to stop and listen.

During the summer of 1968–69, I was doing garden recon­struction work for an elderly couple in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs. They were exceptionally warm, cordial people and we soon formed a good friendship. They would sometimes invite me to share morning tea and the midday meal with them. This afforded us time to talk on a wide variety of subjects, for the elderly Mr Thompson was an articulate, well-educated man. One particular morning, there was a report of a Tasmanian tiger sighting in the Advertiser. A man claimed to have seen what he believed to be a Tasmanian tiger on the Keith–Tintinara road.

Discussing the article over morning tea, I told the pair of my Coorong sighting in 1967. Mr Thompson listened intently before excusing himself and scurrying off to his office. His wife smiled knowingly but didn’t enlighten me as we continued chatting. He soon returned with a dog-eared, well-worn leatherbound journal, which detailed a most fascinating part of his long and eventful life. He explained how a cousin on staff at the Adelaide Zoo around the turn of the century had secured him out-of-hours entry to observe the two Tasmanian tigers then in residence. He explained that these animals had fascinated him, and how he had carefully monitored them in both daylight and darkness.

‘You know, the only pleasure those poor animals ever received was when a sparrow flew into their cage to fossick for scraps of food on the cement floor,’ he began. ‘The tigers would suddenly come alive and make lightning-fast forward movements as they attempted to pounce on the hapless bird. Occasionally they were lucky and quickly gulped down the tiny sparrow in their huge mouths.

‘I felt so sorry for those poor unfortunate creatures, and is it any wonder they were so sullen and moody? The general public were completely ignorant of the fact that here was a wild animal, and a very special animal at that, let me tell you, and one that was condemned to a wasted existence in this small cage for the rest of its miserable life.’

I sensed the elderly Mr Thompson’s sincerity; what he was telling me came straight from the heart. Tears welled in his eyes as he spoke, despite these events having taken place some 70 years before. His was undoubtedly a deep and genuine sentiment for those dejected creatures. I listened, captivated.

He explained how on sunny days the tigers would sprawl listlessly, sunning themselves, appearing completely oblivious to the stares of the curious public. On cool, rainy days, they would retreat to the solitude of their sleeping quarters and were seldom seen. This behaviour appears to be quite the opposite of their habits in the wild, where, being somewhat diurnal, they are occasionally seen out and about on dull, cloudy days, but seldom if ever seen on warm, sunny days.

‘My favourite times were the moonlight nights,’ Mr Thompson reminisced. ‘I would stand for hours watching them pace endlessly up and down their cage. Every so often they would pause to listen to the many different noises coming from all quarters of the zoo. Sometimes they would stand and stare blankly at me. They had these dark, sad, expressionless eyes that best seemed to display the utter frustration of their predicament.

‘Most of the paying public were conditioned into considering them little more than pests and renegade sheep killers, most wondering why they were on display at all. Back in those days, the general opinion was “the only good tiger is a dead tiger” because, you see, at that time the government bounty scheme was in full swing over there in Tasmania.

‘Sometimes there was the odd person who appeared much taken with them, so they were not entirely without admirers. I would quietly stand back, carefully noting the public’s reaction as part of my private study. Their keeper appeared to have little time for them. He paid them little attention when depositing food and water. While he cleaned the cage, they would slink back into a corner and stay well clear. It was noticeably obvious that neither party had little time or affection for the other.’

I asked Mr Thompson if he was aware what they were being fed.

‘The only food I ever saw them fed was rabbit carcasses, fur and all,’ he told me. ‘But I’m not saying that was all they got. Because you see, I was only ever there part of the time but whenever I seen them being fed it always seemed to be rabbit. I imagine they would have been fed mutton some of the time, and even poultry on odd occasions, but I can’t say for sure.’

When I spoke with Mr Thompson about his experiences with the Adelaide Zoo’s thylacines he was about 92 years old, and would have been around 22 years of age when he wrote up his notes on those animals. What I would have given to have that battered old journal he treasured so. It had been well preserved and, written in the neat longhand script of the day, was easy to read. It never entered my head to ask him for his diary, not that I would have had the nerve to do so, because it was without doubt a treasured family possession. It was some time after that I discovered that both Mr and Mrs Thompson had passed on. As to that precious journal, I have no idea what became of it.

Spasmodic thylacine sightings have continued to be reported in the south-east of South Australia to the present day and, enthralling as they may appear, not one shred of conclusive evidence has so far come to light to prove that Tasmanian tigers exist in South Australia, or any other part of mainland Australia.

Whether or not the animal I observed along the shores of the Coorong in 1967 was in fact a Tasmanian tiger is actually of little consequence. What I didn’t realise at the time was that this singular experience would gradually metamorphose into a lasting crusade to try to prove to the world the continued existence of the thylacine.