FOSSIL WEALTH

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 27, 1 August 1923, Page 2

FOSSIL WEALTH

WORLD OF STRANGE

TYPES

AUSTRALIA'S ANIMALS A NATIONAL ASSET

LACK OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD

DEPLORED,

If you want to see what the great Tasmaman forester or "boomer" kangaroo looked like, the easiest way to do it is to take a trip to Paris, declares Thomas Duubabin in the Sydney "Sun." There >s, or was, one specimen still extant "■the world of the long since extinct rail of Lord Howe island, a relation of our native hen. That is in » muge um at v leniia.

Whether any specimen still exists of dou& S ?r V- ( Ot, 0f Mwqoario Island l fl 7 b '-. lf, '<< Joes, it is in Petroo'rad Bellingshausen took some of the parrots to Russia in 1822. I here is one museum specimen of that rare though not yet extinct, Queensland wallaby Macropus Bedfordi. It is >» England. Of the once fairly numerous emus of Taunania and King I s . and nothing now remains except a few bones and feathers in Paris. let all the time the destruction continues There are close seasons and other devices for protection, often ill-en-jorccd. But there are innumerable loopholes in the law. Moreover/these matters are left to the States. One State may make a real effort to protect the native fauna, while in another the slaughter goes merrily on. Prom the scientific point of view the Australian fauna is the most interesting an the world. Australia alone possesses those two "missing links" between the buds and reptiles on the one hand and the mammals on the other—the plalvpus and the echidna. .

Ot the marsupials' Australia has not such a complete monopoly, sineo s.me marsupials sire found in" "North and fcouth Amm-icn. These few species are, however, of minor importance compared to the great development of the marsupials in Australia.

Our scientific knowledge of the marsupials and monotremes is as yet very scanty. But there is not much time to lose unless we can do more to protect them than we are doing at present. Such an authority as Dr. Colin Mackenzie, of Melbourne, who is doing at his own expense, and almost single-handed, a wonderful work on the comparative anatomy of the marsupials and monotremes, calculates that in another 20 years many species will, at the present rate, be extinct. THE VALUABLE PLATYPUS. As survivals from an: earlier world, many of our animals have a- cash as well as a scientific value. For two platypuses landed in New York recently the sum of £600 was paid. The did not ■ live long, but while they did they gave Australia a greater advertisement than all the Trade Commissioners ever appointed. The platypuses secured more publicity in the New York newspapers than'even Mr. Hughes did. .It .is easier, to se-ud Trade Commissioner!?," for'theyare-hard-ier and more adaptable creatures. But the platypus can do more to put- Australia on the map in U.S.A. It does not ask for a salary. Yet some time ago a lady's cloak, in the making of which 50 platypus 'skins were used, was offered for sale in Sydney, and later sent to London.

It is not many years since sheepowners in parts of Tasmania used to pay £1 each .for the heads of that carnivorous marsupial, the Tasmanian tiger (Thylacine), which is confined to the island. Now a good "tiger" is worth £50, and the price is going up.

Who could fix the value of a good specimen of the Wyulda squamacaudatus, of which only one specimen, now jn the Perth Museum, is known?

The value of the skins and furs collected in Australia varies tremendously with the seasons and the prices. But the value of the exports alone often runs into millions. It has been officially slated that in the one yeav 1919 alone over 5,000,000 opossum skins and 1,250,000 native bear- skins were exnorted from the single State of Queensland.

Another "biological industry." pearling and the collection of trapsing ;md of other sea creatures, is one of the mainstays of tropical Australia. Australia produces 90 per cent, of the world's pearl-shell, and the products-of pearling and of allied industries' are wfc.-lh hundreds of thousands a, year. ..'

perhaps the most valuable -fill' is that yielded by the opossum. Now the opossum is one of the most adaptable and accommodating of native animals. In Sydney it roams about Mosman and Neutral Bay and disturbs the rest of citizens by climbing over their roofs by night. Iv Melbourne opossums are quite at home in the Fitzroy Gardens. They eat the scraps from the restaurant and" have been known to get through tho window into the Prime Minister's office in the Commonwealth buildings.

It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the idea of 'possum farming is quite a feasible one. The opossums would forage for themselves and flourish on country of little use for other purposes.' A small beginning with such an experiment has been made in Western Australia, where Mr. Walter Kingsmill had some 'J'asmanian black opossums placed on an island near Esperance with the idea of farming them. It, has been suggested that the Forestry Commissioners might give the idea a trial in some of the State forests; that near Tumbarumba, which is well adapted for breeding opossums with valuable fur. But the Commissioners seem to think that they have worries enough already. While no one breeds opossums the destruction goes merrily on. In' the old days the opossum shooter went out only when the moon was full enough to supply the light by which to shoot the wretched opossums. Now "sports" go out on dark nights with motor-lamps. Still meaner wretches poison the opossums wholesale with cyanide. ANIMALS WORTH MILLIONS. Our animals are still worth millions to us in spite of the fact that in some instances reckless greed and lack of scientific methods have long since destroyed what should be still a valuable source of revenue. Of the whaiino- and sealing industries, which gave Australia her first exports of any importance scarcely a trace remains. All that we have now is the picturesque but unimportant survival of bay whaiino.it Twofold Bay, Ndw South Wales, anS a little seal-poaching at various places Iherc was a time when over 100,000 seal skins were landed in Sydney in a. week Isow there- is not ono in a year. There are still seals on the Australian coast all he way from Seal Rocks, New South' Wales to the Leeuwin. . They are supposed -to be protected by the States, but tins is a go-as-you-please affair Tas mama, for instance, has decided to have an open season in June and July of this year. How any one in authority" is going to prevent seals from Ihe Victorian or New South Wales coast from being

••rung-in" is a matter on which the official mmd is probably a blank. When Mr. Hughes was Prime Minister me federal Government took interest enough m the matter to obtain reports from Mr E. G. Troughton, of the Australian Museum, and Sir. A. S. le Souef, of the Taroiiga Park Zoo. As international questions are involved if seals are to be really protected the Commonwealth is obviously the proper authority to deal with the matter. But nothing has been clone. Th,at, strangely named body, the Institute 'of Science and Industry, has displayed jieither science nor industry in this matter.

Even a suggestion that an export duty of 3d on all skins, other than rabbits Kins, exported from Australia would 12 I 1 re7, euue °f som<= £50,0C0 a year, which could wel be ear-marked first for a general biological survey of the Com-monu-ealUi and (hen to the general work SronsVtf "6i d?SS UOt seem to hllva Wn « 1 °, ntl™Jasni «i»t might have' «en e-^ ected- *et the institute'^ present endowment of £14,000 a ve\r is miserably inadequate for'the work that is supposed to do. The decision of *ovw h\ « tllC f^*™' Conference Crnmonl Hl^ *"" "Ot hel P' alld tlie hS vT Hh 1S «!°!> l*ely to ".go any nighei uith a straight-out subvention.