ZSL London Zoo Clore Pavillion for Small Mammals article

Tim May said:
Although the book "Animals as Friends" (James Alldis) has some interesting anecdotes about London's North Mammal House, frustratingly, for such noteworthy species, the author writes very little about his experiences with the thylacine. Apart from, wrongly, stating he was the last person to see a living thylacine which he describes as:

A curious animal with a mean nature, it had a long, lean body of darkish mustard colour, striped with black bars across the hind quarters, and a narrow head with long and tremendously powerful jaws which it was always ready to use.

he doesn't have anything else to say.
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Could you quote for me the bit about him being in the building when the last(London) Thylacine died there?
 
Pertinax said:
Could you quote for me the bit about him being in the building when the last(London) Thylacine died there?
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Certainly, it reads:-

He died about 1932* and, as I was alone in the House at the time and have never since heard of one being sighted even in his native land of Tasmania, I can claim to be the last person to have seen a thylacine wolf alive.

*The thylacine actually died 9th August 1931 and was a female although Alldis referred to it as "he".
 
Tim May said:
Certainly, it reads:-

He died about 1932* and, as I was alone in the House at the time and have never since heard of one being sighted even in his native land of Tasmania, I can claim to be the last person to have seen a thylacine wolf alive.

*The thylacine actually died 9th August 1931 and was a female although Alldis referred to it as "he".
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It is such a strikingly anti-climatic quote in some ways.

You would have thought that Aldiss would have reflected a bit more on the significance of the death of this animal.

Maybe it is just his reserve / understatement, it is really quite hard to tell.

What is the rest of the book like ? Does he write about other experiences from his career in this brisk / matter of fact and flat tone ?
 
Tim May said:
Certainly, it reads:-

He died about 1932* and, as I was alone in the House at the time and have never since heard of one being sighted even in his native land of Tasmania, I can claim to be the last person to have seen a thylacine wolf alive.

*The thylacine actually died 9th August 1931 and was a female although Alldis referred to it as "he".
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Thanks Tim. Interesting that in the five years it lived there he hadn't discovered/realised it was a female, unless its just literary licence, but doesn't sound too much like it. Obviously, from his claim, he wasn't aware either, of the one in Hobart Zoo that lived until 1936.
 
Pertinax said:
Interesting that in the five years it lived there he hadn't discovered/realised it was a female, unless its just literary licence, but doesn't sound too much like it.
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To be fair to the author, he only worked with the thylacine for a short while, not the full five plus years it was in the zoo.
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
What is the rest of the book like ? Does he write about other experiences from his career in this brisk / matter of fact and flat tone ?
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People like us are obviously disappointed that the book provides very little information about the zoo's last thylacine.

However I don't want to appear too critical; this is not a book aimed at thylacine enthusiasts. As I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread, I'd recommend this book to people interested in London Zoo's old North Mammal House and the author is more emotional when discussing other inhabitants of the building.
 
Dassie rat said:
Here are some thylacine-related books: Thylacines Books
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Thanks for posting this link. I have only one of the books listed: The Last Tasmanian Tiger (Robert Paddle) which I'd certainly recommend.

I would also recommend Thylacine: The Tragedy of the Tasmanian Tiger (Eric Guiler).

However my favourite thylacine book is the German publication Der Beutelwolf: Thylacinus cynocephalus (Heinz Friedrich Moeller)
 
Tim May said:
However I don't want to appear too critical; this is not a book aimed at thylacine enthusiasts. As I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread, I'd recommend this book to people interested in London Zoo's old North Mammal House and the author is more emotional when discussing other inhabitants of the building.
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Yes, I know what you mean, Aldiss was obviously a product of his time and we can't apply 21st century moral standards to the early 20th century.

Out of curiosity, which are the other inhabitants that he speaks more emotionally about ?
 
Tim May said:
Cats were clearly the animals he liked best and he got quite emotional when discussing his favourite leopards, pumas, cheetahs and Asiatic golden cats. He was similarly emotional when writing about one of the gibbons and a fennec fox.
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Hmmm, interesting, who doesn't love an Asiatic golden cat though ?

Well I suppose knowing that he had his favourites and formed some emotional attachments to some of the individual animals that he worked with makes him seems much more human and less pompous to me now.
 
Tim May said:
Thanks for posting this link. I have only one of the books listed: The Last Tasmanian Tiger (Robert Paddle) which I'd certainly recommend.
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Paddle's book is the most recent major work on the Thylacine. It is in many respects a valuable resource, however it is riddled with errors and innacuracies- probably the most major of which was his positive insistence that the last Thylacine in Hobart Zoo was a female- it was a male, a fact which has since been proved visually on the film, and was also positively described as such by David Fleay from his visit to see it. The book also, rather strangely, contains weighty chapters on socio-political matters of the time. It was actually an extension of a PHD thesis I believe, and many Thylacine researchers regard it as something of a wasted opportunity to produce a modern definitive work on the species.

Guiler's 'Thylacine; Tragedy of the Tasmanian Tiger' still holds weight, though it is an older publication and some of his statements and listings have been superceded by more recent information. Its quite valuable now also...
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Interesting, Aldiss doesn't seem to have been too keen on the thylacine (which of course all us zoochatters find totally incomprehensible).

Perhaps the aggression of this particular thylacine was due it being a stressed and agitated animal that was experiencing difficulty to adjust to life in captivity.

Similarly, the attitude of Aldiss towards it perhaps may just be a reflection of some of the common prejudices of the time about the natural world and the stereotype of this species as vicious due to popular misconceptions.

To put it in historical context though it was probably extremely unlikely that Aldiss would have known the true rarity and significance of this particular animal under his care. To add to that there was generally a leftover Victorian attitude of nature as being inexhaustible and a "there is more out there in the bush" mentality so I do think that we have to forgive him his prejudice.
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I did read a book (Robert Paddle's I think) that there was a racist and sexist element to the demise of the thylacine. It sounds like "politically correct" "woke" nonsense but it made some sense - marsupials were seen as "primitive", like the human inhabitants of its native land, and the views of the female keeper were disparaged.
 
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SHAVINGTONZOO said:
I did read a book (Robert Paddle's I think) that there was a racist and sexist element to the demise of the thylacine. It sounds like "politically correct" "woke" nonsense but it made some sense - marsupials were seen as "primitive", like the human inhabitants of its native land, and the views of the female keeper were disparaged.
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Yes, I think that there was definitely a similarity in the view towards the thylacine and the aboriginal inhabitants of Tasmania as them being percieved to be primitive obstacles to the "march of civilization" and the taming and opening of the land for settlement and agriculture.

Both the aboriginal peoples and the thylacine (there is a brilliant short essay in a book by Stephen Jay Gould about this negative attitude towards marsupials) were considered to be living relics that menaced civilization and that were destined to extinction. Unfortunately ultimately both were to be wiped out by this.

I dont know about the sexist thing though ... o_O... that does sound a bit woke to me, afterall wasn't the owner in charge of the Hobart zoo at the time of the last thylacine a wealthy high society lady ?

I'm not really the most knowledgeable person about the history of the thylacine in captivity so if I've got that wrong someone please feel free to correct me but I've never read about the keeper of the last animals being a woman.
 
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Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
I dont know about the sexist thing though ... o_O... that does sound a bit woke to me, afterall wasn't the owner in charge of the Hobart zoo at the time of the last thylacine a wealthy high society lady ?

I'm not really the most knowledgeable person about the history of the thylacine in captivity so if I've got that wrong someone please feel free to correct me but I've never read about the keeper of the last animals being a woman.
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Mary Roberts was the 'wealthy high society lady' and the owner of the first Hobart zoo at Battery Point/Sandy Bay, which was replaced later by the one run by the local Council on the Domain site. Mrs Roberts' zoo was a private collection of mainly native fauna, and she was quite an expert(for those days) in her keeping of marsupials but she never succeeded in breeding from her Thylacines.

Alison Reid(whom I have met) was the daughter of the curator at the 2nd zoo after it was set up at the Domain site, which is where the 'last' Thylacine died. She is the one who is the subject of Paddle's 'sexism' comments. Its true she was very prominent in the care of the animals in the last declining years of the zoo after her father died, and that she was discriminated against because of her sex and treated badly by those in charge of the zoo.. There was still a male keeper
at the zoo at the time of the last Thylacine's death.
 
Pertinax said:
Mary Roberts was the 'wealthy high society lady' and the owner of the first Hobart zoo at Battery Point/Sandy Bay, which was replaced later by the one run by the local Council on the Domain site. Mrs Roberts' zoo was a private collection of mainly native fauna, and she was quite an expert(for those days) in her keeping of marsupials but she never succeeded in breeding from her Thylacines.

Alison Reid(whom I have met) was the daughter of the curator at the 2nd zoo after it was set up at the Domain site, which is where the 'last' Thylacine died. She is the one who is the subject of Paddle's 'sexism' comments. Its true she was very prominent in the care of the animals in the last declining years of the zoo after her father died, and that she was discriminated against because of her sex and treated badly by those in charge of the zoo.. There was still a male keeper
at the zoo at the time of the last Thylacine's death.
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I stand corrected on the issue of the thylacine and sexism. I didn't know about Alison Reid or the struggle she faced but I'm now intrigued by her story so will try to find some more information on her online.

Relating specifically to the thylacine did Reid face a struggle trying to improve this animals wellbeing at the zoo because of her being a woman ? or how did this sexism specifically relate to the death of the last captive animal ?
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
I should have read this earlier I suppose as I hadn't heard of Alison Reid.

Even better that it has an audio option so can listen to the article narrated as I work.
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Don't believe everything in this article though as it is taken from Paddle's book. Much of his information on this is taken from an interview with Alison Reid, so admittedly it is firsthand, but even so, there are innacurracies over his description of the last Thylacine's death- there is no proof it was left outside to die in the cold. Alison Reid has said that the carnivores were sometimes shut out like that, due to slack management, but not specifically the Thylacine on the day it died.. Paddle replicated a popular myth in describing that story yet again.
 
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Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
I stand corrected on the issue of the thylacine and sexism. I didn't know about Alison Reid or the struggle she faced but I'm now intrigued by her story so will try to find some more information on her online.

Relating specifically to the thylacine did Reid face a struggle trying to improve this animals wellbeing at the zoo because of her being a woman ? or how did this sexism specifically relate to the death of the last captive animal ?
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In a nutshell; she became the curator de facto but her sex meant she wasn't given the title, and she was also denied keys to access to the zoo out of hours even though she lived adjacent to it, so could not go in and attend to animals that had been left shut out at night etc. This is frequently extended to explain the circumstances of the last Thylacine's death, but even she didn't state that was the reason, though there was undoubtedly serious general negligence before the Zoo finally closed.
 
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