Thylacine postcard from Randy Barnes

[Angie]

I exchanged thylacine art with a man I met at FB. I sent him one of my hand carved stamp postcards and he sent me this.

Of course, looking at it, one falls immediately in love with the thylacine. I wanted to get the art out and touch it and hold it. I wanted to turn it over and see the back. I wanted to use it as a book mark or frame it or just love on it.

It wasn't easy getting to it though. I had to cut the tape. My scissors was dull. I tugged and pulled but finally got into the inner works only to discover that the thylacine was forever trapped inside the cage via some aggressive staple gun staples. The thylacine art was trapped inside the plastic container. Like a museum specimen that I could only look at from a distance. I couldn't touch it, I couldn't know it.

Wow! Just freaking wow. I can't begin to tell you how moving I find this amazing postcard.

The Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger is an extinct apex predator from Australia. It was hunted to extinction by European settlers at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. The last know animal died in a zoo in the 1930s. 

This amazing animal is nocturnal, has eyes that help it see at night, stripes that offer camouflage, a bizarre gate and a marsupial pouch that faces backwards. A truly unique, beautiful and amazing create that humans - colonial empires - destroyed. 

Many people claim to have seen Thylacines in the Australian bush suggesting that maybe it's not extinct. We can hope.  

Randy tells me he was active in mail art in the 70s,  80s and 90s. Yeah, he's got the gift for sure.

Thank you so much Randy!