F.G.S., C.M.Z.S., Director of the Museum, and he chose for his subject
“The National Parks of Australasia, and their value in regard to the
preservation of the native animals.”
Dr. Hackett, M.L.C., the Chairman of the Museum Committee, presided, and
in introducing the lecturer, remarked that this was the twelfth and final
lecture of the third series, and that he was pleased at the good
attendance there had been throughout, which showed that they supplied a
popular want.
Mr. Woodward expressed regret that owing to the Government Geologist, Mr.
Gibb Maitland, having been detained at Pilbarra, the audience would have
to wait until next session to hear about the “Volcanic History of Western
Australia.” He was, however, glad to have the opportunity of bringing
forward a subject in which he had always taken the greatest interest, and
to which he had on all possible occasions, since his arrival in the State,
over eighteen years ago, endeavoured to attract public attention, viz.,
the preservation of the Indigenous Fauna and Flora, the most interesting in the world, for the animals of Western Australia were even more remarkable and peculiar than those of the Eastern States.
The lecturer then read the copy of the petition drawn up by the sub-
committee of the W.A. Natural History Society, and handed by the
President, the Bishop of Perth, the Right Rev. Dr. Riley, to his
Excellency the Governor, Admiral Sir F. G. D. Bedford, G.C.B., as patron
of the Society for transmission to the Minister for Crown Lands. The
petition was as follows :—
“We, the President and members of the Western Australian Natural History Society, humbly petition that the reserve for the protection of the native fauna and flora in the Darling Ranges, Murray No. 2,461, gazetted on January 31, 1902, may be vested in trustees as a national park. This reserve was originally gazetted with slightly different boundaries on February 16, 1904, on the petition drawn up and signed by the President (Sir John Forrest), and members of the Western Australian Natural History Society, which was presented by its patron, His Excellency, Sir W. C. F. Robinson, to the Hon. W. E. Marmion, Commissioner of Crown Lands. It is unnecessary to recapitulate the reasons then given in support of the request ; they are, however, of still greater urgency at the present time, as so many native animals are becoming very rare, and others almost, if not quite, extinct, and they are clearly set forth in the British Parliamentary paper, Africa, No. 5, 1900, reporting the Convention signed in London for the preservation of wild animals, birds, and fish in Africa. The contracting parties were the Queen, the Emperor of Germany, the Kings of Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, and the President of the French Republics. The extent of the protected areas then declared is enormous. Nor is it needful to call attention to the reserves of the Eastern States and New Zealand, to the numerous reserves, including several islands, made in the United States of America since 1900, although that country, with an area only three and a-half times the size of Western Australia, had already a national park fourteen times as large as the one we ask. These questions have been so prominently brought forward in the leading newspapers and magazines of the world that their importance is a matter of common knowledge. We are moved to call attention to the urgency of the matter, as licences to cut timber on this area have been granted, although there is very little fine timber upon it, and this only on the western side, for we consider that it would be a great misfortune to have ‘the eyes picked out of it.’ The Minister for Lands, the Hon. Geo. Throssell, wrote in his minute on this reserve, dated November 11, 1897, ‘he feared an ancient tree would become a thing of the past, and that the reserve should contain some of the noblest trees.’
We further beg that the following islands may also be set apart as reserves and included in the Bill : —
Barrow Island, 90 miles off the North-West coast ; Bernier, or else Dorre Island, Sharks Bay ; Mondrain Island, on the South coast. Barrow Island contains at least five animals not found elsewhere in the world. Bernier and Dorre Islands are the last remaining habitats of Lagostrophus fasciatus, Lagorchestes hirsutus, and Bettongia lesueuri, three of the wallabies. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that a Bill may be submitted to Parliament drawn on lines similar to those of the South Australian National Park Act, of 1891, and the Deed of Grant to Trustees of the National Park of New South Wales, in 1887, vesting the reserve 2,461 Murray in trustees, so that it may ‘be used as and for a national park.’”
The lecture was illustrated by a large number of lantern slides, commencing with A Zoo-geographical Map showing the limited area now occupied by marsupials and monotremes, the lowest orders of the mammalia, which, with the exception of the opossums of Central America and the South Eastern United States and two small forms in South America, were now only to be found in the Australasian region, proving that this country must have been isolated from the rest of the world since that remote spoch [sic] which geologists name Jurassic, when these orders were the predominant if not the only mammals in existence, as evidenced by the fossil remains found in Europe, the United States of America and elsewhere.
Then followed some thirty slides of typical marsupials, from the recently discovered mole to the gigantic diprotodon, of which the skeleton was obtained from Dr. Stirling, of Adelaide, in February last. Following next to this was shown the ideal drawing made by Professor Owen when he first received one or two bones of this monster from Queensland, and which approximated in the closest manner to the actual skeleton when further discoveries of bones were made five and twenty years later. Next a photograph of Brock’s bust of the Professor.
In the McCleay Museum in Sydney University, Mr. Woodward saw several Western Australian mammals now extinct, although they were plentiful in 1868 when Mr. Masters made the collections, while those found by Gilbert and described by Gould in 1840 still further prove the rapid disappearance of these most interesting forms of life. The prognostication of Darwin, in 1859, concerning the probable early extinction of Australian marsupials had unfortunately become fully verified in the last half-century, for those animals that had become highly specialised in the struggle for existence in the great continents, when introduced into countries situated like Australia, speedily crowded out of existence the marsupials which were less highly specialised. Mr. Shortridge pointed out how the harmless sheep was causing the extinction of the kangaroo rats.
Mr. Woodward then gave a short account of the reserves in the Eastern
States.
South Australia.
The National Park at Belair, eight miles east from Adelaide, contained 2,000 acres, on the slopes of the range of Cambrian Rocks, which culminates in Mt. Lofty. The park was vested in twelve commissioners. The Act of Incorporation was passed in 1891, and a set of by-laws drawn up in 1892 to protect the fauna and flora, etc. The agitation to obtain this reserve or the protection of the fauna and flora commenced in 1883. The Chairman, Sir Edwin T. Smith, K.C.M.G., in January last, kindly gave him much information about the management of the park. It was, however, too small and too near the extending suburbs of Adelaide to be of use in the preservation of the larger animals, and so the Government were setting apart the western end of Kangaroo Island.
Victoria.
This small State, only one-tenth the area of Western Australia, had a reserve of 70,000 acres on Wilson’s Promontory. This reserve was obtained through the energy of the late Mr Le Souef. There were also in Victoria many swamps and other places proclaimed as “breeding reserves for game,” on which all shooting was strictly prohibited, as was the case in the State forests, which are numerous and extensive.
New South Wales.
Mr. Farnell (Chairman), Mr. Murray White, and Mr. O’Sullivan, trustees of the National Park, took him on two occasions to that magnificent reserve, and the secretary, Mr. Malone, supplied him with a copy of the deed of trust, map, and by-laws. The National Park, about 17½ miles south of Sydney, contained about 35,000 acres, and Kuringai Chase, of about the same area, was 20 miles to the north, while in and about Sydney itself there were nearly 4,000 acres of public parks and recreation grounds. In the National Park the lyre bird was increasing in numbers and losing its shyness, for one seldom passed along Lady Carrington’s drive without seeing some. Mr. Le Souef saw seven nests last year. A number of views of Kuringai Chase and the National Park were thrown on the screen, showing the picturesque weathering of the Hawkesbury sandstone, the waterfalls, the upper of 111 feet, and the lower of 45 feet, the luxuriant growth of the palms and trees, ferns, and the deep gorges cut by the rivers, and the fish hatcheries, etc. In the maps of the National Park a portion was marked off as the deer park. In this the imported deer were flourishing ; they were fenced in and not allowed to interfere with the indigenous fauna. Thus they did no harm, for the two could not inhabit the same lands.
New Zealand.
In New Zealand, there were three special reserves for the preservation of
the fauna and flora : —
(1.) Little Barrier Island.
(2.) Kapiti Island.
(3.) Resolution Island.
These islands were mountains, rising to 5,000 feet on the last-named, and were in parts well timbered. In addition, there were on the mainland numerous State forests and the National Park, a huge block of land containing several volcanoes on an elevated plateau.
The address of Colonel C. S. Ryan, President of the Australian Ornithologists’ Union, on the protection of native birds, referrer [sic] to The Protective Legislation of the civilised world, from Great Britain to Japan.
Colonel Ryan stated that Australia and New Zealand could not afford to be behind, and that the first object to be attained was to get the Acts in the various States strictly observed. It was notorious, continued Mr. Woodward, that some of the game laws were more observed in the breach than in the fulfilment, especially in the country districts. Take, for instance, Sunday shooting. It was an offence against the Victorian police statutes ; if the law were strictly carried out it would give an additional close season in favour of the birds. Could the Western Australian Police Act be amended in this direction? Mr. Milligan reported that the Cannington district was overrun on Sundays by larrikins with guns, who fired indiscriminately at all birds. Mr. Gale informed the lecturer that the 64th Victorian, No. 33, an Act for the protection of kangaroos, allowing them to be killed for food, but not for sale or barter, was absolutely useless, for a smart lawyer proved to the Court that no conviction could be obtained under it. Only a few years ago an Eastern hunter cleared off 80,000 kangaroos in the North- West and North, not for the benefit of the State, but only for his own pocket. The netting of wild birds should be forbidden. Only a few weeks ago they had heard of many thousands of ducks being captured and slaughtered at Wagin. A swivel or punt gun was illegal, and so should nets be.
In conclusion, attention was called to the valuable Report by Mr. Shortridge
of the British Museum, published in the “West Australian” of the 18th June
last. It gave an account of his zoological work in Western Australia, and
discoveries during the past two years and a-half, and offered very
valuable suggestions as to the best means to hinder the rapid
extermination of the many unique forms of animal life still to be found in
Western Australia. He deplored the total destruction of the two species of
Potorous :—P. gilberti (Gld.), Gilbert’s rat kangaroo, P. Platyops (Gld.),
the broad-faced rat kangaroo, both common in 1840, when Gilbert was
collecting for Gould, and he might have added Choeropus Castanotis (Gray),
the pig-footed bandicoot, which had apparently died out both in South
Australia and in this State. On Bernier and Dorre Islands, off Carnarvon,
were still to be found Lagorchestes hirsutus (Gld.), the rufous hare
wallaby, and L. fasciatus (P. and L.) the banded wallaby, but in rapidly
diminishing numbers, and Mr. Shortridge advised that those islands be
declared reserves.
Still more important from the zoologist’s point of view was the question of Reserving Barrow Island, on which occurred at least five species peculiar to that locality, M. isabellinus (Gld.), the Isabelline kangaroo, the Spectacled Hare-wallaby, Lagorchestes conspicillatus, the Barrow bandicoot, P. barrowensis (Thos.), a peculiar rodent, M. ferculinus (Thos.), and the King’s wren M. edouardi (Milligan). None of these five was to be found elsewhere in the world. There had been some talk of making use of Barrow Island as a hospital for the aborigines, but as it was 45 miles from the coast, and nearly double that distance by boat, and was inaccessible at certain seasons of the year, it did not seem to be a feasible scheme. It would certainly cause the extermination of the fauna.
Mondrain Island, thirty miles from Esperance, was the hatitat [sic] of Hackett’s wallaby, Petrogale hacketti. The Reserve in the Darling Ranges (Murray, 2,461), was selected by Mr. Woodward in 1893, the Premier of the day, Sir John Forrest, having asked him to suggest an area. He, at his own charge, examined the Crown lands between the Canning, Beverley, Bannister, Pinjarrah, and the Williams, and marked on a map three areas high in the ranges and quite unsuitable for agricultural purposes. Land so rugged and so covered with York-road, narrow leaf, and box poisons that the Poison Land Syndicate would not take them up at fivepence per acre, payable over twenty years, at the time they secured the 1,200,000 acres surrounding these three areas. He marked the one between the Bannister and Pinjarrah No. 1 as the best of the three for the purpose, as great grey kangaroos and emus abounded. The country was very picturesque, consisting of gneissic hills covered on one slope with ironstone conglomerate. From the summit of Wourhaming Hill, an immense outcrop of diorite, 1,900 feet high, the view was magnificent, all the higher peaks in the Williams district in the south, Mount Darkan in the north, and Mount Brown near York, being conspicuous. There were many sandy blackboy flats, and some permanent waterholes. The timber was chiefly scrub jarrah, with wandoo in the flats, a few sheoaks on the hills, very few banksias, and on the western edge a little fine jarrah and red-gum.
Areas Nos. 2 and 3 were neither so accessible nor as large ; they lay near
the Darkan and towards the Sand Springs respectively. On these there were
some clay swamps, a larger proportion of sheoaks, but scarcely any fine
timber.
The lecturer concluded with the exhibition of a photograph of a great grey
kangaroo, in the attitude assumed when at bay, and over it inscribed the
legend of the Dying Gladiator (slightly modified) “Moriturus vos
salutant.” The audience did not turn down their thumbs, but seemed
unanimously in favour of protection being accorded.
Dr. Hackett, at the conclusion of Mr. Woodward’s lecture, thanked him for
bringing up the subject in such an interesting and emphatic way. He urged
the great importance of the protection of such animals peculiar to
Australia as Mr. Woodward had mentioned and illustrated by lantern slide.
Many of these animals were already extinct, and they should do all in
their power to prevent such an extinction through the want of suitable
protection in the way of national reserves. Speaking more particularly in
reference to the Museum lectures, he thanked all the gentlemen who had
assisted during the series ; and he eulogised the work of Mr. Woodward,
upon whose shoulders had fallen practically the responsibility of
arranging the lectures during the past three years, and he hoped that it
would be possible for the next series of lectures to be delivered in a
more suitable lecture hall, instead of the present room which was so badly
adapted for that purpose.
