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Figuring Extinction : Visualising the Thylacine In F I Ct N Ct EXT1 N CT( N: Visualising the Thylacine in Zoological and Natural History Works 1808-1936 Carol Freeman Bachelor of Arts (Hons) Volume 1 Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2005 School of Geography and Environmental Studies University of Tasmania ; .49 fiZEENtA*.j PI, D. Statement of Authenticity This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other higher degree or graduate diploma in any tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no copy or paraphrase of material previously published or written by any other persons, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis or in footnotes. Carol Freeman University of Tasmania •=1'ey 0 5 This thesis is not to be made available for loan or copying for two years following the date this statement was signed. After that time, the thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968. //;4",e• Carol Freeman University of Tasmania ,9-0/ / 2 / 0 5 Acknowledgments This thesis is the result of four years work that has benefited from the assistance and support of many individuals and institutions. Those that have contributed substantially to the finished thesis are mentioned below. Research was financially assisted by a three year Australian Postgraduate Award. My supervisors Dr Peter Hay and Dr Elaine Stratford at the Centre for Environmental Studies consistently encouraged me in a project largely outside their fields of interest. I am grateful to Professor Jamie Kirkpatrick, Dr Peter McQuillan and Dr Aidan Davison who provided advice in the latter part of my candidature; Darren Turner, Trish McKay, and my fellow postgraduate students who supplied friendship and congeniality. As the project involved extensive use of the University of Tasmania Library resources, Rachel, Chris, Hazel and Jill in the Document Delivery Unit supplied interstate and overseas material and Judy and Emilia facilitated access to works in the Royal Society, Archives and Rare collections. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of my research, I have been particularly reliant on help from staff in departments other than Geography and Environmental Studies — Dr Stefan Petrow and Dr Keith Atkins from the History department; Dr Menna Jones from Zoology; Dr Jonathan Holmes, Associate Professor Rod Ewins and Kaye Green from the Centre for the Arts; and Professor Adrian Franklin from Sociology. Research for this project was also dependent on contacts with academics and specialists in other states of Australia. Dr Robert Paddle at the Australian Catholic University and Professor Mike Archer at the University of New South Wales, as well as Barbara Hamilton—Arnold in Tasmania, provided invaluable help with matters relating to the thylacine. Early in the research period an invitation to participate in a workshop at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National University in Canberra inspired me to take innovative approaches; in particular, Professor Greg Dening and Dr Sylvia Kleinert offered pertinent advice. In 2001, on my journey to see indigenous rock engravings in the Dampier region of Western Australia, I met anthropologist Dr Patricia Vinnicombe, who helped me begin to understand the significance of engravings for Aboriginal culture. It was with great regret that I later heard of Patricia's death. Others who kindly assisted me in this area of research are Ken Mulvaney, Dr. Kingsley Palmer and the staff at Ngarluma/Injibarndi Native Title Service. I owe particular thanks to John Lally who took me to Angel Island. During the last year of this project, animal studies has emerged as a significant field of study in Australia, invigorated by an Animals and Society Study Group based in Western Australia. The inaugural conference of this group in 2005, organised by Dr Natalie Lloyd and Dr Jane Mulcock, has provided me with great encouragement in regard to future studies. Searching for works that contain the images I discuss took me to libraries and museums in many parts of Australia and to Britain. In all of them I was dependent on the assistance of staff — Craig Reid and librarian Kay Dimmick at the Queen Victoria Museum; David Walker at the State Library of Tasmania; Wayne Longmore at Museum Victoria and Des Cowley at the State Library of Victoria; Mark Hildebrand at the Mitchell Library in Sydney and Rose Docker, Matt Stephens, Sandy Ingleby, Rebecca Johnson and Lorraine Watson at the Australian Museum in Sydney; and Dr Mike Smith at the National Museum, Canberra. I am also grateful to staff at the Queensland Museum library who provided access to their extensive collection of nineteenth century zoological works. In the United Kingdom, those that assisted me include Ann Sylph and Michael Palmer at the Zoological Society of London library; Ann Datta at the British Museum (Natural History) library; Emma Tate at Knowsley Hall; and staff at the National Library of Scotland. Email contact with researchers and staff at overseas institutions has also been valuable — particularly that with Dr Stephen Sleightholme in Britain and Dr Chris Smeenk from the Natural History Museum in Leiden. Others who have provided images and information in Tasmania include Gerard Willems and my 'team' of translators — Inga Hofling, Dagmar Nordberg, Liz Koolhof, Nicole Johnson, Patricia Besse11 and J.G. van Moort-Kapteijn. The friendships that were fostered by my research have made the completion of this project so much easier: Dr Helen MacDonald, Dagmar Nordberg, Yvette Watt and Merryl Parker generously shared their experience, humour, and particular passions. I also owe thanks to my family — Tony, Jules and Di, and Jess — for providing technical and photographic expertise, a collegiate atmosphere, research assistance and editorial suggestions. ABSTRACT The ability to make images allows humans to construct ideas about and positions for animals that can have devastating consequences. Little attention, however, has been paid to the affect of representations on animals that have subsequently become extinct. For instance, while a number of studies agree that the thylacine — a shy carnivorous marsupial with a striped back, a coughing bark and a pouch was hunted to extinction on the island of Tasmania, none focus on the role of zoological illustrations in shaping false perceptions of the species. This thesis, then, aims to identify the ideas constructed by these images and examine how the attitudes they produce relate to the thylacine's extinction. I analyse over 80 engravings, lithographs and photographs published in Europe and Australia before 1936, when the last thylacine in captivity died in a Tasmanian zoo. I track changes in the images, expose the implicit messages they project, reveal how science constructed authoritative ideas about the species, and examine how image and text interact to generate particular suggestions. I also discuss the techniques and assumptions associated with different media, the economic and political factors that contributed to the production and dissemination of illustrations, and the influence of new scientific theories on ideas about extinction. I argue that visualising the thylacine rests on an 'economy of value': the species was discursively constructed in ways that evoked existing myths about predators such as the wolf, that pandered to a taste for the exotic and sensational and that specifically encouraged actions conducive to the extermination of the species. This is supported by evidence that taxidermy mounts, as well as figures in photographs, were manipulated for scientific, economic and commercial purposes; that while artists often convey sympathy toward the animal in preparatory drawings, these signifiers are removed when they appear in published works; and, significantly, that the most negative images are in publications that had a wide circulation and are held as multiples copies in Tasmanian collections. These illustrations 'figure' the thylacine's extinction. The findings suggest that understanding the role of images in influencing attitudes toward animals is imperative if we are to resist the circumstances and actions that lead to the extinction of a species. Further focus is required, therefore, on the interactions between art and science, representations and the 'real' and between humans and animals — areas of research rarely addressed by those involved in zoology, visual culture, or wildlife conservation. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Volume 1 Prologue — Angel Island 1 INTRODUCTION 12 The Extinction of the Thylacine 12 Purpose of Study 14 Aim and Scope of Research 16 Theoretical Frames and Methods 19 Title 23 Structure 24 FRAMING THE IMAGE 27 Cultures of Natural History 27 Zoological and Natural History Works 32 Zoological Illustration 35 Production Processes 40 Image and Text 45 The Image Reframed 47 FIGURE 1 TH-E APJECT -n-tyLAci NE 1808-1846 49 The First European Illustration of the Thylacine 50 Copies of the Image 59 Animals and European Settlement 66 Summary 70 transformations 1820 - 1846 72 The Images 73 Naming and Classification 83 Summary 86 FIGURE 2 TI-t.E tA_ND.ESIRAP,LE TH-yLACI NE 1840 - 1925 88 Natural History Publishing 89 The Naturalist's Library 91 Copies and Reproductions of the Image 98 Illustrations Derived from The Naturalist's Library 102 Economic Zoology 107 Summary 109 FIGURE 3 Ti-I-E EXOTIC Tf-tyLACI NE 1850-1924 110 The Thylacine Comes to Britain 110 Alternate Images 121 Images
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