Col Bailey - Shadow of the Thylacine: One Mans Epic Search for the Tasmanian Tiger

Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks to Dr Stephen Sleightholme and Cameron Campbell for their much valued encouragement, and for their gen- erous assistance with revisions to the text and with photographs.

Also to my literary agent, Tim Curnow, whose dogged perseverance eventually succeeded in locating a publisher for my manuscript; thank you most sincerely for your friendship and assistance and, above all, your professionalism, which never wavered.

Special thanks to the many old Tasmanian bushmen who over the years shared their inspiring stories of the thylacine with me. They were the true experts when it came to the Tasmanian tiger. And to my father, Ray, who by his example instilled in me a love of nature and the outdoors.

To the Director of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, my good friend Bill Bleathman, for his kind permission to reprint photos from the TMAG collection.

To those many people from all walks of life who have shared their thylacine sightings with me; they are from all points of the compass and each had a unique story worth telling.

And particularly I wish to thank the main players in my autobiography: Elias Churchill, Old Bert, Deny King, Reg Trigg, David Fleay, and last but not least, the truly magnificent Tasmanian tiger, for without this protagonist, there would have been no story.

About the Author

A retired landscape gardener and bushwalker, Col Bailey is also a recreational canoeist and marathon race walker who once held the Australian 50-mile walk race record. In early 1967 he chanced upon a Tasmanian tiger while canoeing along the Coorong in South Australia. Since then hes been motivated me to prove to the world that this animal still exists. Shadow of the Thylacine is Cols second book. He lives in Tasmania.

I wish to dedicate this book to my friend and mentor, the late Eric Guiler, whose determination and fortitude, despite his unsuccessful efforts to locate the thylacine, were an inspiration to me right from the beginning. That he did not succeed is beside the point, for he truly believed the animal was still out there absolutely and until the very end. And he was right!

Also to my dear wife of 54 years, Lexia, whose love and patience has sustained me over the many years of my quest, and to our four children, Jennifer, Jillian, Grace and Steven, for their encouragement and genuine interest in my passion down through the years. I lovingly thank you all.

Foreword

Dr Stephen Sleightholme

I first met Col on a visit to Tasmania in November of 2002, in the lounge of the historic Hadleys Hotel in the centre of Hobart, as part of my work on the International Thylacine Specimen Database. It would be no understatement to say that I was somewhat sceptical at that point in time as to the possibility of the thylacines continued survival. In the two hours or so that we spent together, Col argued his case for the continuance of the species so well that he had a convert on his hands by the time our meeting ended. We have remained good friends ever since.

Col describes himself as an amateur researcher, which always makes me smile. I know of no other individual, and I include myself in that number, who has the depth of field experience that he has gained over 40 years and who has been privileged to interview at first hand so many of the central characters in the thylacines more recent history. He is an amateur in name only.

Cols first book Tiger Tales is a nostalgic glimpse into the lives of the old bushmen who trapped and snared thylacines in the early part of the twentieth century. These men, as Col rightly states, were the real experts on the tiger. His new book Shadow of the Thylacine follows on from many of those tales and brings the story of the thylacine right up to date. In doing so, a number of startling revelations are made that fly in the face of current scientific opinion.

Anyone who knows Col Bailey well will attest to the fact that he is an honourable man whose integrity is beyond question, so these revelations cannot be disregarded as comments from an individual who does not know the thylacine. In many ways they are a clarion call to act before it is too late.

I once said to Col that he was the last of the great thylacine hunters and in many ways this is a befitting title.

Dr Stephen Sleightholme

Project Director, International Thylacine Specimen Database

Winner of a Whitley Award from the Royal Zoological Society in 2005

Foreword

Cameron R Campbell

Having followed the thylacines story for nearly half a century, Col Bailey has become one of the worlds most respected authorities on the species. My first contact with Col came around the turn of the new millennium, shortly after my website, the Thylacine Museum, was launched. Over the following years, his help has been invaluable to me in providing information and research material for my own work. For the Museums fourth edition in 2012, Col contributed a comprehensive historical presentation about the lives of the old Tasmanian bushmen, focusing on their experiences with the thylacine.

Now, with his second book, Col presents an autobiography of his decades-long search for the thylacine. On this journey, he has gathered a wealth of recollections from those who saw the animal in the early twentieth century experiences of an era which has now nearly passed from living memory. There are many stories within these pages that would surely have been lost forever if Col had not recorded them as opportunities arose. Along with such historical material, Col also reveals, for the first time, surprising findings made in the course of his field work in isolated areas of the Tasmanian wilderness. The book is a truly fascinating and attention-holding account, and its publication will ensure that the unique chronicle it contains is preserved.

Cameron R Campbell

Curator, The Thylacine Museum

http://www.naturalworlds.org/thylacine

Images in Text

Chapter 2: The Early Days

The magnificent panorama of the Coorong, a lagoon in south-eastern South Australia, where the author believes he had his first sighting of the Tasmanian tiger in 1967

Chapter 3: New Directions

David Fleay examines the grisly remains of a wallaby on the Jane River track, west coast of Tasmania 1946

Sigrid Fleay with children Rosemary, Robert and Stephen, and Jack Daly in hat, at Mt King William, Tasmania 194546

Rosemary Fleay looking over Collingwood Range and Valley with Raglan Ranges in the distance, January 1946. A thylacine had been sighted crossing the West Coast Road near this spot in September 1945

Finding the first footprints of a track on Poverty Plain; inset, plaster cast of the left front foot of the thylacine

Left to right reads as follows: Don Davie, David Fleay and Roy Alderson with Nigger the pack horse. Mt Gell in the distance

Chapter 10: Lure of the Weld The Covert Truth

A thylacine skull: note the clearly displayed dentition and the reinforced upper jaw bone (zygomatic arch) so necessary in aiding the excessively wide gape needed to crush the head and neck of its prey

Chapter 11: Arrival of the Movie Makers

Ernie Bond: friend of the bushwalkers. This larger than life Tasmanian bushman was certain that the Tasmanian tiger lurked near his home in the Vale of Rasselas 160

Gordon Vale homestead, c. 1938, situated in the Vale of Rasselas, southwestern Tasmania; the wilderness home of noted bushman, Ernie Bond 161

Chapter 17: Lure of the Wilderness

Prints in the sand near Modder River, West Coast, April 2005: smaller Tasmanian devil prints alongside what I believe to be Tasmanian tiger tracks on an isolated West Coast beach at Varna Bay