Letter: You are right, Australian mammals get a bad rap

From Mark Nelson, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Jack Ashby is spot on in his observation of dismissive attitudes towards native Australian mammals (14 May, p 27).

As an example of this, I remember an interview with the daughter of the owner of Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, Tasmania, who overheard the disappointment in a local’s voice on seeing the last living thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger – “Oh, it’s only a Tasmanian animal” – before rushing off to see the more “interesting” exotic animals.

This is even more poignant given that the unique thylacine was hunted to extinction to preserve the rarest of non-native Australian animals, the sheep!