Carnivorous Nights_ On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger - Margaret Mittelbach [24]
As the Spirit pulled away from the dock, we stood by the railing and watched the lights of the city fade away. The sheltering arms of Port Phillip, Melbourne's harbor, stretched out for miles. It felt like we were traveling over smooth, smoky glass. If this was the badass Bass Strait, we could handle it. Of course, it wasn't. The moment the ferry passed beyond the harbor's reach, the Spirit began to pitch and we felt the strait's force yanking at our innards. It seemed to be sending us a message: “Don't underestimate my power, landlubbers.”
The Bass Strait has been described as “rough,” “capricious,” and “dangerous.” It's shallow and easily disturbed—nowhere more than 230 feet deep—so when waves come rolling in from either side, they grow in height and sometimes break like surf against a beach. From the west, the wind comes from the Roaring 40s, a raging circum-global system that barrels across the open ocean and reaches screaming speed when it funnels into the Bass Strait.
By the standards of the strait, we were in for a calm night. Still, when we looked down at the tossing waters lit up by the lights of the ferry, the waves looked ominous. One misstep on the slippery deck and we would be swept away, like cigarette butts down a storm drain.
To get a different perspective, we climbed up three flights of narrow metal stairs and felt the sucking pull of shifting gravity as the boat knocked us from side to side. On the top deck, the force of the wind made it hard to walk and whipped our hair into Medusan up-dos. High Plexiglas barriers ringed the perimeter. When we looked out, it was too dark to see the tempestuous chop below. And all we could hear was the howling wind. The only other people who had ventured this high were two drinking buddies, leaning into seats fastened to the deck.
Despite the Bass Strait's ferocity, we knew many animals negotiated its turbulent waters. Seals and sharks. Little blue penguins, albatrosses, and other birds that nested on the strait's many islands.
Alexis peered down toward the dark water and yelled above the wind. “You know, twelve thousand years ago, we could have taken this journey by foot,” he said.
We imagined a sped-up version of geological events dating back 250 million years. At the start of the film, all the world's continents are joined together in one big mass called Pangea. Then Pangea splits in two. The great southern continent—Gondwanaland—is created. And slowly Gondwanaland begins stretching like taffy. First Africa breaks away, then South America. Now, just Antarctica and Australia are left jammed together—and Tasmania is the sticking point. Finally after much straining and pulling, Antarctica drifts off, leaving Australia and Tasmania still connected. Millions of years pass, and a series of Ice Ages begin. Australia and Tasmania remain fitfully connected by a land bridge. Aboriginal people, tigers, wallabies, and other animals travel back and forth.
Then about twelve thousand years ago, the last Ice Age ends and glaciers begin to melt. The seas rise, flooding the shallow valley between Tasmania and Melbourne and forming the Bass Strait. Tasmania is turned into an island. Nothing goes in and nothing goes out, unless it has wings or fins, for thousands of years. For the tigers, that separation turns out to be a good thing. On the mainland the tigers die out, but they live on in Tasmania—the furthest outpost beyond Wallace's Line. The film ends.
In those years during which the island was completely isolated, the only people who encountered the Tasmanian tiger or even knew it existed were the aboriginals who lived there. Geographers have calculated that about four thousand people and four thousand thylacines lived in Tasmania at any given time. This delicate balance was maintained for a remarkable