Tiger Tales: Stories of the Tasmanian Tiger

by Col Bailey

Everywhere you look in Tasmania there are pictures, symbols, signs and designs of the island's most famous resident, the Tasmanian tiger. Yet the last captive animal died in 1936 and according to scientists is officially extinct. Or is it? In Tiger Tales , Col Bailey showcases his favorite Tassie tiger stories, from mysterious sightings over the past 60 years to interviews with old fur-trappers and bushmen from great wilderness regions.

Genres: Natural History, Animals

164 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2003

Reviews

[Stacey Schmidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for the second time July 21-22, 2016.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really loved Col Bailey's Shadow of the Thylacine, so I was very excited to read Tiger Tales, his first book. It's very hard to come by, but it's available to borrow on the Internet Archive, so I was finally able to read it. It's not really a book about the search for them, like the other was, but entirely a compilation of the stories he collected and published in column over several years.

So why not 5 stars? Well, two reasons come to mind regarding how hard it is for us to relate to a different culture. This book is hard to read because most of the stories are about people killing the thylacines and being proud of it. Col Bailey acknowledges that it was genocide, but still, it's story after story after story of all of these people talking about killing or wanting to kill them. Unfortunately, those accounts are all we have about these poor creatures. It was a different time where hunting was the norm, frontier life was the norm, and struggling to survive was the norm.

Also, many of these stories mention how the people, specifically the hunters and killers of these animals, were stand up folks, respected in their communities, outstanding citizens who were "local celebrities" and did a lot for their communities. Again, this is not a culture I relate to. Back then it was important for all of those people to have respect as impressive, tough guy hunter-trapper individuals. Daniel Boone, Natty Bumppo, etc.

But they eradicated an entire species, seemingly more out of annoyance and for a little money than because they were starving and needed to.

If Tasmanian Tigers still existed, lots of people would still want to shoot them. And lots of people would still want to vilify them as monsters, as people feel the need to do. It's too bad we couldn't get to a point to understand what they were really like.

Sorry for the rant. But in any case, there are a few good stories here but I highly recommend Shadow of the Thylacine more.