Carnivorous Nights_ On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger - Margaret Mittelbach [86]
“But it's not just the farmers,” he continued. “Anyone with feelings about wildlife conservation would be worried as well. If the foxes get established here, we'd probably lose every species under five kilos. There are so many native animals in that five-kilo-and-under range that you don't find anywhere else—not anywhere else in the world except Tasmania. Australia's got a terrible record for mammals becoming extinct in the last two hundred years. But in Tasmania, there's only one that's supposed to be gone—the Tasmanian tiger. Now we're looking at twelve, fifteen, twenty species that could go.”
“Things aren't looking good for Mangy,” Alexis said.
Clearly, foxes were the bad guys in Tasmania. Yet, we found it strange to be rooting for the hunters. In films that depicted horseback-riding aristocrats chasing after packs of bloodhounds, we had always rooted for the fox. This whole anti-fox thing was requiring a reversal of thinking.
Ken slowed down and drove up a dirt road, stopping in front of a wire gate. We got out and surveyed the scene, grassy fields separated by hedgerows. This was just the kind of terrain where we could imagine a foxhunt.
“So, what do you think of foxhunting, you know, the kind with horses and hounds?” we asked.
Ken lit up a cigarette. “Actually, I'm the master of the Northern Hunt Club.”
“That's so sexy,” said Alexis.
The waning light obscured Ken's reaction.
“Is that on the mainland?” we asked.
“No.”
“It's in Tasmania?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” We didn't get it. How could they have a foxhunt in a place without foxes?
“Have you ever heard of aniseed oil?” Ken asked.
“I've had it rubbed on me,” Alexis said.
Ken took a deep puff on his cigarette. He explained that at his hunt club, the dogs chased after a lure that had been drenched in aniseed oil. This aromatic lure stood in for the fox. Except for that, the club carried on the old English traditions, with riders dressing in jodhpurs and pinks and sharing glasses of port at the end of the hunt.
A pickup truck drove up to the wire gate, and a man dressed identically to Ken got out. Ken introduced him as John McConnell, another member of the task force. He had red apple cheeks and a jolly demeanor. John put his arm around Ken, so that their Akubras were touching. “We're the best blokes,” he said.
These were the kinds of guys you would want to have around if the laws of society broke down. Nice and friendly, but able to pick off a looter at two hundred yards.
John brought out the task force's fox rifle. It had a black plastic stock and shiny stainless steel barrel. Our previous experience with firearms had been limited to cap guns and G.I. Joe's miniature arsenal.
“It's a Ruger .223 caliber,” John explained. “It was made in America, actually.” He whistled cheerily as he put it together and loaded it with bullets. “I was born and bred on a sheep farm,” he went on, noting our fascination with the rifle. “So we grew up with foxes being around all the time and of course as a young kid, not only were they a pest, but very good money in the skin industry. When you weren't doing odd jobs and working on shearing sheds, any spare time you had, you went foxhunting.” He shrugged. “Most country kids grow up with hunting.”
By this time, night had fallen and it was full dark. John handed the rifle off to Ken, opened the hood of the truck, and hooked up a cable to the pickup's battery. It powered a handheld spotlight. Then John hopped into the bed of the truck.
“Tally ho,” he said.
As Ken set the pickup in motion, he rested the rifle across his thighs. In the back of the truck, John moved the spotlight slowly back and forth, illuminating dry fields covered with pasture grass. The beam of light was filled with dust and flying insects. We smelled hay and cow manure.
We passed a shearing shed and stockyards. The paddocks were separated by wire fences and dotted with stands of wattle