an online column by Carmel Bird
No. 11
14 October 1998
Previous columns
Keep Off The Grass
This is a Tasmanian story.
One of the most important industries in Tasmania is the tourist industry. Some years ago Australia had an airline pilots' strike, and because Tasmania is an island, its tourist industry went into decline. Recently a lot of the regular flights from the mainland of Australia to Tasmania were cut. So Tasmanians started thinking about some dramatic ways to attract the attention of visitors. What more fascinating lure than that of an extinct animal? How about the Tasmanian tiger?
I'm in the local grog shop to get some stubbies of Cascade Premium Lager, the one with the Tasmanian tiger's picture on the label. The stubbies are known as tigers. The tiger itself is known as an extinct animal, having been hunted out of existence. The last certified sighting of a tiger was in 1936 in the Hobart zoo where the animal died in its cage. Some people devote their lives to the search for the tiger, strong in the belief that the animal is not really extinct, just hiding.
The wall of the grog shop is a brightly lit giant refrigerator with glass doors behind which gleam and beckon hundreds of bottles -- clear, amber, blue, green -- with seductive labels. The tigers -- green bottle, red and sandy label, are on the top shelf, out of my reach. So I'm standing there looking up at them, thinking about asking for help.
'Choices, choices,' says a man beside me with his trolley full of groceries and wine.
'I know what I want, but I can't reach it.'
'What is it?'
'Cascade. Tigers.'
'There you go,' and he puts a six-pack in my trolley, 'anything else?'
'No thanks, just the tigers.' Then he says,
'Do you know they're offering a million dollars in Tassie if you can find a live tiger?' I hadn't heard, but I might have guessed.
'Really?'
'Yeah. I reckon they ought to offer a million dollars if you can find anything alive in Tassie.'
Interesting point. People are always quick with a Tasmanian joke.
I went home and watched the television news, and there I learned that, as part of a travelling exhibition about the extinct animal, the Tasmanian government had indeed offered a million dollars for a tiger. Long ago, the bounty was much, much lower. But no sooner had they thought up the million dollar idea, than they reconsidered, and withdrew the offer because the idea of hundreds of search parties tracking through the forests would do too much harm to the bush itself. You'd end up with not only an extinct tiger, but a whole lot of violated virgin land and some new things to put on the endangered and extinct lists.
And there you have it - the paradox of tourism. If you want to sell your scenery, soon you won't have any scenery to sell. Tricky. Tasmania is a beautiful place, an island of breath-taking mountains, rivers, forests and beaches, an island of sweetness -- fruits, wines, cheeses, fishes, meats, bread and honey and jam. Lager. Rare plants and trees and animals and birds. Extinct species too. But if you let tourists come in the numbers necessary to make tourism worth your while, you turn your paradise into wasteland.
The search for the tiger was a brilliant idea, and maybe they would have done well to sacrifice the bush in the interests of fame and even, perhaps, fortune. Or maybe there really is a tiger, and they know it, and they were unable to put up the money. Well, so be it. The only place you will find a Tasmanian tiger is on the label of a bottle from the oldest brewery in Australia. Not such a bad thing, really.
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