|
All of Harrison's thylacines were procured in North West Tasmania, many
by well known bushmen. The likes of A. R. "Dick" Rowe, Almer Saward,
Alf Forward, Frank Upston, Dick "Boy" Evans, Harry Wainwright, Ray "Turk"
Porteus, Roy Anderson, Tom Harman and Adye Jordan all supplied live thylacines
to Harrison. |
.
.
|
Map
of northwest Tasmania showing the known points of capture of 24 of Harrison's
thylacines.
Sources:
1)
Elliott (Examiner, 6/3/1917 p. 3), 2) West Takone (Melbourne Zoo
minutes, Oct/Nov 1929), 3) Meunna (Interview - Kath Doherty - daughter
of Frank Upston - Archives Office of Tasmania, AOT NS 896/37, Thylacine
Competition Entry, Doherty, 2/9/1981), 4) Mawbanna (Examiner, 1/5/2005),
5)
Brittons Swamp (Bell, 1965), 6) Arthur River (Advocate, 20/3/1928
p. 4), 7) Arthur River (Malley & Brown Interview, 1/10/1972),
8)
Arthur River (North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times, 13/5/1916 p.
2), 9) Salmon River (Forward & Harman capture, Circular Head
Chronicle, 11/8/1926 p. 5 & Mercury, 24/8/1954),
10) Marrawah
(Almer E. Saward capture 1, Roberts's diary & Saward, 1990),
11)
Trowutta (QVMAG thylacine reports - Harrison, Ref: TAHO NS463/1),
12)
West Montagu (Almer E. Saward capture 2, North Western Advocate and the
Emu Bay Times, 7/6/1917 p. 4), 13) Irishtown (North Western Advocate
and the Emu Bay Times, 23/7/1910 p. 6),
14) Arthur River Mill (Ken
Willoughby capture, 1930, Thylacine
Expeditionary Research Team Archives, 4/10/1970, QVMAG), 15)
Lapoinya (Kaine capture) (Dr. S. Sleightholme [interview with descendant]),
16)
Inglis River (Phil O'Reilley interview, 1973), 17) Hellyer River
(Blackwell Interview, 1951), 18) Parrawe (Blackwell Interview, 1951),
19) West Montagu (Dick Evans capture, Moeller archives).
Satellite
image: Google Earth.
|
.
|
In an article (source unknown) in the Moeller archives, Dick Evans states
the details of his thylacine capture:
"During the winter of 1912, my brother Bill and I had snares set for wallaby
in the bush near our parents' home at West Montagu. Bill was then
at school, a lad of 11 years of age. I was 14. I had left school
before the age of 13. Fortunately, on a particular Saturday morning,
we decided to change runs and so I was the one destined to check the lasso
type snares set in bush behind my sister Verina North's home. As
I approached one snare I suddenly froze to the spot and my hair literally
stood on end, for to my utter amazement, I was face to face with a three-quarters
grown Tasmanian Tiger. It was caught in the snare by its foot.
At the sight of me the tiger fought frantically to free itself. For
me, this was a prize catch and there was no way I was going to let it get
away. Making quick decisions, I dashed with lightning speed back
to the previous snare. Taking that snare, I hastened back, grabbed
the tiger by its stiff kangaroo-type tail, and holding him thus, I managed
to slip a noose round his neck. Once I had him firmly tied by the
neck. I proceeded to tie his mouth shut. When I arrived at our place,
I dumped him on the back doorstep and called to father, who was eating
breakfast to come and see. Father and I took him down to the barn
where we put a dog collar around his neck and tied him up with a trace
chain to a beam of the shed. We had him there for a week and fed
him on bits of wallaby and water. We contacted Jimmy Harrison of
Wynyard, who ran a bit of a zoo and he agreed to pay £10 if we could
get it up to him. When the cheque eventually arrived it even had
the threepence exchange added to it. Father built a crate and made
a muzzle for the tiger. Then we crated him up and took him to Smithton
in a 2 seater jinker to catch the mail car. But when we got there
we found the crate too large to fit on the running board of the car.
We had to transfer him to another box while we made the crate narrower,
and so it was the next day before we got him away. Jimmy Harrison
sent the tiger to the Hobart Zoo".
Harrison's surviving notebook provides us with a rare insight into his
business practices. He appears to have been meticulous in recording
the details of his sales, purchases, and travel arrangements, and kept
a running balance of his day-to-day accounts. Harrison's notes that
he supplied Albert Le Souëf (the director of the Taronga Zoo in Sydney)
with marsupial
rats
in spirit, with the intestines removed, at 10/- each. There are also
several references to skulls (unspecified) and skins (unspecified), indicating
that in addition to live animals, he also supplied specimen material to
order.
An interesting entry in Harrison's notebook for 1927 notes a quote to supply
4 devils at £3.10/- and 3 tigers at £75 each to the Perry Brothers
circus. Several circuses had thylacines on display in their travelling
menageries, notably Wombwell's, St Leon's and the Fitzgerald Brothers (Sleightholme
& Ayliffe, 2013 [ITSD Project Summary, p. 17 & 94]), but there
is no evidence to suggest or confirm that this order was ever fulfilled.
Within his home in Wynyard, Harrison had his own private museum, consisting
of three rooms in which he proudly exhibited numerous mounts and skins
of Tasmanian marsupials, including 15
thylacine skins and 4 mounted specimens.
Harrison not only had first-hand experience with thylacines in the wild,
but also personally secured, or helped to secure, at least three
live specimens: |
.
i) "Snaring for
tigers back of Trowutta. After five days caught one by the front
paw which was broken. He kept the animal in a cage with splints on
the paw, and after four days the tiger would come to him to have the paw
attended to".
. |
ii) "Once caught
a tiger which he tied up, and carried back alive on his back".
. |
| iii) "Caught
one tiger in a hemp snare. It chewed through several 2" pegs, but
not the snare rope". |
With reference to the second capture, the Advocate of the 2nd July 1927
(p. 2) notes:
"Many years ago", Mr. Harrison states, "a friend of his was out in the
moonlight on a winter's night, waiting to get a sitting shot at a kangaroo,
when he saw running towards him a kangaroo at great speed. He fired
and knocked the kangaroo over. The animal jumped up and ran away,
when, to his astonishment, he saw four animals like young dogs following
the kangaroo, and uttering a short, snappy bark. These proved to
be a litter of tigers, three-parts grown. He shot one, and Mr. Harrison
helped carry it home".
Walter Blackwell of Wynyard was married to one of James Harrison's daughters,
and recollects several stories on Harrison when interviewed
in 1951. He said of Harrison:
.
|
James
Harrison carrying a wallaby across a road. This image is from a motion
film taken in Wynyard in 1924; almost certainly, the only movie footage
of Harrison in existence. Courtesy: Archives Office of Tasmania.
|
. |
"Harrison once wanted to catch a tiger, so hired a horse, bought another
for £1, and set off for the Arthur River. At a point 1 mile
below its junction with the Hellyer River, and 1 mile from it, he shot
the packhorse for bait, and set snares all round it. That night he
camped on the Arthur River, and next morning he returned to find he had
caught a beautiful tiger. This took place about 20 years ago.
Before that, Harrison and two other men camping on the banks of the Arthur
heard a strange noise, sounding like a dog. A wallaby came down the
opposite bank, and swam across it towards them, followed by a tiger which |
|
| began to swim
after it. Harrison in his excitable way, began shouting out to his
friends that there was a beauty for them to catch, but of course the tiger,
hearing the commotion, turned and swam back again. Another tiger
caught by Harrison in a snare had its skin cut right round its neck and
one front leg by the snare, except for a small gap at the top of the neck.
The tiger was kept in a cage at his home and after six weeks the wound
had turned septic, so he contacted Dr. Muir, who came and syringed the
wound out with Lysol. There was a rapid improvement and after another
fortnight the tiger used to come to the front of the cage to be treated.
Harrison took it over to Melbourne and sold it to a Melbourne Doctor as
a pet for £25. The specimen was caught in the Hellyer area
near Parrawe about 16-18 years ago". |
|
