I was wondering if anybody knows the number of thylacines killed and handed into officials during the 1888-1909 bounty, on a year by year basis. I know that a total of 2184 were killed over the entire period, as well as the numbers for the years 1888, 1908 and 1909.
Off topic, but can you give a little background to the bounty? Why was it done? Surely by 1909 they must have been endangered?
The whole idea behind the bounty was to get rid of them. They were considered a menace by farmers and that was enough. Conservation has only gained widespread recognition in recent decades. Before that only a minority cared about saving animals from extinction. One thing was that many had a fundamental Christian view where animals were made for us by God but even more important are level of education and daily surplus to think about other things than getting enough food for ourself and our family. It is difficult to judge people of a different era by current standards.
From Guiler. 1961. reproduced in 'The Tragedy of the Tasmanian Tiger' 1888-81 1889-113 1890-128 1891-90 1892-112 1893-107 1894-105 1895-109 1896-121 1897-120 1898-108 1899-143 1900-153 1901-151 1902-119 1903-96 1904-98 1905-111 1906-58 1907-42 1908-17 1909-2 Total; 2184 (2040 adults. 144 juveniles) The scheme ran for three more years until 1912, but no more animals were presented in those years.
A real sad story and poignant too (to the point how careless us humans have been over biodiversity). It would seem that at the time of the extermination process the Tassie wolf was never common given those low numbers of kills ...
There is a terrific book by Robert Paddle (History and Extinction of the Tasmainian Tiger). It's a must read, I loved it!!
I think that's a pretty big number of kills for an Apex predator which is obviously going to be less numerous than the prey species that support it. All the literature suggests there was a population crash around the time the Bounty scheme ended, but whether it was caused by the effect of the Bounty scheme, or other causes, will never be known now.
If you read Guiler and Paddle, both of them note that there are strong indications that a disease with similar symptoms as canine distemper was raging through the thylacine population during the bounty scheme (there are similar indications that the tasmanian devil and spotted quoll populations populations crashed end of the 19th century/early 20th).
yes you did. I just read it as sounding more certain than it really was. I think they hypothetised rather than having any hard evidence, but I mustn't be picky...
