Buffalo catcher

Tommy Fawcett collection

Buffalo catcher

This buffalo catcher has been fitted with a bionic arm specially designed to catch feral beasts in the Northern Territory. The bionic arm animal catching unit was invented by Kal Carrick in 1976. The water buffalo is not native to Australia. Like most introduced species, it has brought with it both benefits and harm. Originally introduced from Indonesia in the 1820s as a source of food, by the 1980s there were an estimated 400,000 in northern Australia. Many of these became feral and were infected with tuberculosis and brucellosis. Infected buffalo threatened the health of those that were being domesticated for commercial purposes, therefore a cull program called BTEC (Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign) was introduced in the 1980s. Tommy Fawcett's buffalo catcher represents the climax of the feral buffalo harvesting industry in the Northern Territory during the 1970s and 1980s, just prior to BTEC which attempted to eliminated feral buffalo.

The Buffalo Catcher is able to keep up with the running buffalo and trap its head and horns in the mechanical arm on the right hand side of the vehicle.

The driving is a bit of an art I guess, but then you also got to know the country and the animals.
Tommy Fawcett

The buffalo industry has been a key element in shaping contact history in western Arnhem Land and has had significant environmental impacts. The buffalo catcher with its evocative locally engineered 'bionic arm' provides material evidence of the responses of people working within the industry to the physical challenges posed by both the animals and the environment.