The one good thing about not having anyone who makes any
comments on Lost Treasures is that it gives me the oppurtu-
nity to go beyond music and enter the deep subconscious to
talk about some really way out there things that has about
as much to do with music as i do with single women. None
in other words. And tonight, i`m gonna talk to you about a
lost treasure from the australian animal kingdom, the long
presumed extinct Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine. The last
known Thylacine to exist, named `Benjamin` passed away
at Hobart Zoo in 1933. No one can be sure if Benjamin was
a boy or a girl, because Tassie Tigers were one of only two
marsupials where both sexes had a fluffy pouch, and with
males, they had a scrotal pouch which protected their wee
wee from being damaged when chasing after things in the
wild. Thylacines were probaly already extinct on the aus-
tralian mainland around the time of european settlement,
but no one will ever know forsure. The reason why they
continued to survive in Tasmania up until the early 20th
century is because the dingo never made it to Tasmania,
they only made it to the australian mainland. The tigers
were shot en masse by Tassie farmers who didn`t want
their chickens and sheep eaten, the Tasmanian govern-
ment from 1888 and 1909 even payed a bounty price of
1 pound per head for a dead adult specimen and 10 shil-
lings for puppies. Obviously the politicians in Tasmania
back then weren`t gay and members of the Green Par-
ty, or otherwise they would have been shooting at red-
neck farmers and not Tassie Tigers. Domestic dogs and
disease probaly also played a part in wiping them out in
the 1920`s after the bounty on them had ended when it
became more apparent that they were going to become
extinct if the farmers did not cease shooting the striped
marsupial blighters. My guess, and i`m being complete-
ly serious now, is that the Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger
is still out there somewhere, be it in the vast expanse of
north-west Tasmania or in the even more remote south-
west corner of Tasmania, like around Federation Peak or
somewhere really remote like that. They also are official-
ly extinct in New Guinea, which obviously is an indication
that they once existed there, and there is certainly every
chance that a wild mob of these furry critters exists some-
where in the remote jungle of Papau New Guinea or West
Papua, also known as Irian Jaya. Simply because there is
still so many places on the island of New Guinea where no
man has been to, except for the cast of Survivor of course.
There have been many rewards offered over the years for
the capture of a live Thylacine, it almost seems as hard as
capturing an alien to do it. And we`re not talking peanuts
either, the magazine The Bulletin offered a reward of 1.25
million dollars in 2005 over a three month period for the
safe capture of a living Thylacine, but no one ever came
along with one and the offer was withdrawn. And Stew-
art Malcolm, a Tasmanian tour operator, offered a 1.75
million dollar reward for the capture of a live Thylacine,
and to my knowledge the reward is still on offer to this
day, even though any reward would be illegal because
trapping a Thylacine (even though they`re classed as
extinct, mmmm mmmm, only in Tassie folks) remains
illegal. My gut feeling is that the Thylacine is just a lost
treasure, not an extinct treasure. There has to be a few
out there somewhere, like along the banks of the Frank-
lin River, or in the foothills of Cradle Mountain, or like i
already said, somewhere uninhabited and off the map in
the South-West National Park or in some gully along the
Arthur River. There has to be, i`ll walk down Queen St.
in Brisbane City naked if there isn`t one of these furry
sly buggers out there somewhere waiting to be sprung.
If i had enough money to buy a torch instead of having
to settle for a box of matches in the dark, then i would
probaly be game enough to go tiger hunting in Tasma-
nia so i could get my hands on the 1.75 mil that Stew
Malcolm is offering for a live catch. But knowing my
luck, all i`ll end up finding in the dark down in Tas-
sie is Bob Brown doing a crap behind a gum tree.
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