Tasmanian Devil (15 page)

Her article concludes with a section headed ‘General Remarks':

I have always found devils rather fond of a bath; quite recently, going down to their yard after an illness and finding only a drinking vessel, I ordered a larger one to be put in, and they showed their pleasure by going in at once, sometimes two at a time. I have occasionally poured water from a can over them, when they would run to and fro under it with much enjoyment.
    Their sight in daylight is rather defective; they seem to pick up their food more readily by smelling than by seeing, and I think they can see objects better at a distance.
    At the present time I have six running together, my own three and three that I bought when in their mother's pouch. All are tame, frolicsome, and lively. I can go in and have a bit of fun with them, and when I am outside their enclosure they frequently climb the wire-netting to the height of nearly six feet, and get their little black faces close to mine with evident delight. We have tried more than once to get them photographed, but it is impossible to keep them quiet, they are on for a scamper all the time. Recently an adult escaped, and it was discovered by a passing school-boy sitting on a high fence bordering the street, under the shade of some elm-trees, many people passing on the foot-path without observing it. They are, however, always very timid when coming down.
    They are fond of the sun, and look well when basking in it, the rays shining through make their ears appear a bright red, fore-feet parallel with the head, hind-quarters quite flat on the ground and turned out at right angles, somewhat as a frog.
    My sympathy with my little black ‘brothers and sisters' is intense, probably evoked by having suffered much mentally owing to the gross cruelties which have come under my notice, the result of capturing them in traps. Frequently three or four have been sent to me in a crate, only to find later on one with a foot shot off or a broken leg. In a consignment received some time ago, a dead one was found; it bore unmistakable signs of a snare previously, round the neck, one foot was gone (an old injury), and finally a recently smashed leg much swollen, the cause of death. I communicated with the S.P.C.A., and since then have had none from that district.
    I have derived much pleasure from studying the habits and disposition of the Tasmanian Devils, and have found that they respond to kindness, and certainly show affection and pleasure when I approach them. I have been led to believe that no case of their breeding in captivity has been recorded, and certainly not in Tasmania.
    Others who do not know or understand them may think of them as they like, but I, who love them, and have had considerable experience in keeping most of our marsupials, from the Thylacine down to the Opossum Mouse (
Dromica
nana
), will always regard them as first favourites, my little black playmates.
⁷

Mary Roberts wasn't a trained scientist. But her Beaumaris Zoo not only popularised native animals until then considered loathsome, dangerous and expendable; it also attracted those few scientists who had begun devoting their energies to understanding and protecting the island's fauna. One was Clive Lord, Director of the Tasmanian Museum, who in 1918 compiled a list of about 50 known descriptions, classifications and drawings of the devil. He expressed concern that native species such as the devil were decreasing in numbers while very little was known about them.

Another was Professor T. T. (Theodore Thomson) Flynn, who occupies an important place in Australian zoology as a pioneering twentieth-century mammalogist. His works on the embryology and early development of native animals are rightly described as classics. In 1909 he had become the inaugural Professor of Biology at the University of Tasmania and for 20 years remained devoted to his research.

Professor T.T. (Theodore) Flynn, a biology lecturer and researcher at the University of
Tasmania from 1909 to 1930, was the father of actor Errol Flynn. Theodore
undertook pioneering laboratory work on devils, one result being this fine natural
history illustration of the urogenital system and pup on teat. (Courtesy Collection
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery)

One of Flynn's early publications was ‘Contributions to a Knowledge of the Anatomy and Development of the Marsupiala: No. I. The Genitalia of
Sarcophilus satanicus
'. His research derived from a single female devil, the first ever to come into his possession—not from Beaumaris Zoo but from Clive Lord. In his introduction Flynn noted that his intention had been to study a number of specimens before publishing his results, but their ‘increased scarcity' decided him otherwise.
⁸

The research itself was obviously not easy, Flynn noting the ‘unfortunate lack of original communications and papers in Tasmania'.
⁹
His introductory notes are illuminating:

The specimen of
Sarcophilus satanicus,
of whose genital organs this communication is a description, was forwarded to me through the kind offices of Mr J. E. C. Lord . . . This is the only female which I have as yet obtained and I had originally intended that its description should wait until further specimens had come to hand; the increased scarcity, however, of these animals, together with the discovery of a number of interesting and significant points in the morphology of the genital organs, has influenced me to publish the results earlier than otherwise would have been the case. Portions of the paper can as yet be regarded only as preliminary notes. This is due, in the first place, to scarcity of material, and, in the second, to an unfortunate lack of original communications and papers in Tasmania.

His short, preparatory description further reveals the difficulties of conducting pioneering scientific work under the conditions he experienced:

The specimen was a full-grown female, with three fairly advanced young in the pouch. All had been dead for two days. The pouch-young were fixed entire in corrosive-sublimate-acetic-solution, the genital organs of the mother in picro-sulphuric solution. In this latter case, on sectioning, it was found that what blood there was in the vessels had hardened so much, that it was only with extreme care and difficulty that sections could be cut at all. The hopeless gapping of the razor-edge, with consequent damage to the sections, is well indicated in Fig. 10.
¹⁰

Guiler provides an interesting snapshot of Flynn and Roberts:

Flynn was a very powerful personality and full of drive and energy which led him into many adventures, creditable and otherwise. He was often at the Zoo in his early days in Tasmania but the [Roberts] Diary entries show a declining enthusiasm and in August 1918 Mrs Roberts records that she had sent an account to Prof. Flynn for the devils, adding that she expected to be paid. In October 1918 she records that she rang the University ‘re the skeletons Flynn has'; he was to ring back the next day but did not do so. Possibly the non-payment for specimens may have been the cause of Mrs Roberts' annoyance with Flynn but it is not surprising that there was a cooling in their friendship, as Mrs Roberts was most fastidious in all her dealings and Flynn most casual and unbusiness-like in his.
¹¹

Among Flynn's ‘adventures' were rumoured clandestine sales of thylacines. His family life was messy, including estrangement from his wife and considerable difficulty in managing his headstrong, wild, sexually charged son Errol, destined to become the dashing star of more than 50 Hollywood movies. The first chapter of Errol Flynn's autobiography is called ‘Tasmanian Devil, 1909–1927', and it was his Hollywood studio, Warner Bros., that created the irrepressible
Looney Tunes
cartoon character, Taz the Tasmanian Devil.

Tasmanian Museum director Clive Lord, in his own writings on the devil, observed:

Its hardy nature both in captivity and in its wild state cause one to wonder how it came about that this species became extinct on the mainland within comparatively recent times . . . In the rougher sections [of Tasmania] this species exists in fair numbers and there is every prospect of it remaining an inhabitant of such places for years to come.
¹²

Lord also sounded what might be called an optimistic warning, one that has still not been resolved 200 years after George Prideaux Harris wrote his description of the devil. Towards the end of his life Lord wrote: ‘We, as Australians, have been placed in charge of a wonderful heritage, and it rests with us to respond to the trusteeship which has been granted us.'
¹³

Clive Lord died in 1933 and so did official interest in the devil.

6

IN THE MATTER OF THE SOCIETY AND THE BOARD

A ranger's wife learns to cope with all sorts of emergencies, but the most bizarre was the day I bathed a devil in the laundry tub. He had fallen into the sewerage ponds at Strathgordon. A Hydro worker had watched him swimming frantically around. He was eventually fished out with a pole, exhausted, panting, not looking (or smelling) very good . . . He stayed still, just shivering while I stood him in the warm water and lathered him up, working fast while my luck held. Lifted him out, towelled him down briskly, while he continued to look stunned, then relocated him to the shed, into a wooden box filled with warm blankets, and left him in peace to recover from his ordeal. When the children came home from school we went to the shed, opened the door and the devil bolted to freedom

M
AUREEN
J
OHNSTONE
, R
IVERSIDE

T
hroughout the first half of the twentieth century the devil lived in the lengthening shadow thrown by the tiger's disappearance and presumed extinction. But when the devil did receive attention it wasn't good. According to a 1948 tourism publication, devils were ‘ugly, bad-tempered and vicious, and settlers have hunted them incessantly with guns and dogs'.
¹

Guiler's pioneering research into devil populations remains of central importance. As a reader in zoology at the University of Tasmania, and chair of the state's Animals and Birds Protection Board in the 1950s and 1960s, he was uniquely placed to study the island's ecology. He provides an interesting potted modern history of the devil:

This creature did not figure in the debates of the early Boards because, at that time, it was rare to uncommon over all of the State. It was not until 1945 that devils appeared in the Minutes when the Ranger at Lake St Clair was reprimanded for being knowingly involved in the capture of two (or more?) for Poulson's Circus.
    By 1950 the numbers had built up to enable the Board to grant permits for their capture and by 1959 pressure was being exerted on the Board to place them on the Unprotected Schedule on account of the damage they did to possums caught by trappers and to weak sheep and lambs. No action was taken other than to grant permits to the complainants provided they could prove the alleged damage.
    The depredations became more widespread and by 1966 the Board was issuing poisoning permits to control the devils. However, it was clear that very little was known about devils and a research project was started in 1966 in co-operation with the Zoology Department of the University.
    The Board was fortunate in that it had the resources at the time to commence this work as some of the Members were very reluctant to issue poisoning permits for an indigenous species about which so very little was known.
    The project was important as it showed that the Board was prepared to switch its resources into non-commercial or non-sporting species and treat them on their scientific merits rather than the political desirability of being seen to be studying the so-called game species. This was the Board's first research programme into a non-game species.
²

Every year between 1966 and 1975, at remote Granville Harbour on the west coast, Guiler led a devil research team. They set more than 5000 traps at nineteen locations, with such names as Harrison's Back Pockets, Dead Heifer, Duck Creek Track, and Pig Farm. A total of 282 devils was captured 946 times, 664 being recaptures. He also carried out extensive field research at Cape Portland in north-east Tasmania. The published results initiated modern devil research.
³