Australian Dictionary of Biography

Arthur Youd (1891-1982), trapper, was born on 31 January 1891 at Deloraine, Tasmania, seventh of eleven children of Arthur George Youd, farmer, and his wife Emma, née Collins. Arthur grew up in the small farming district of Golden Valley, south of Deloraine in northern Tasmania. In 1904, as a teenager, he commenced winter hunting on the Central Plateau for kangaroo, wallaby and possum skins for the European and North American fur markets. In 1914, with his cousin Paddy Hartnett, he visited the wild and beautiful mountain country at the heart of the later Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park; in 1916 Youd began hunting there with his elder brother Percy (1886-1928). After spending the first couple of winters under a rough shelter at the foot of Mount Jerusalem, the brothers built a hut at the eastern end of Lake Ball from which they operated for a number of years.

On 7 May 1919 at Golden Valley Arthur married with Church of England rites Sylvia Irene Preece. He settled into an annual routine of spending nine months at home on the farm at Golden Valley with his wife and children and three months in the mountains hunting. In 1923 he and Percy moved the locus of their operations further south to Lake Meston, where they refined their hunting strategies to include attending to snare and trap lines during the day and spotlighting for possums at night.

After Percy died Arthur continued to return to Lake Meston almost every winter until 1958, sometimes with a partner, but often alone. In his late sixties he moved operations once more, south to the less climatically challenging valley of the Mersey River; he retired from hunting aged 72. His wife, left at home during winter for decades to look after the farm and the children, joined him for one of his last seasons.

Youd became famous locally. Not only did he hunt, often alone, in a very remote alpine and sub-alpine setting, he was also highly successful. Holding the record (133 dozen) for the most skins caught in a season, he regularly earned in excess of £400 for a nine-week hunting season at a time when rural workers might earn up to £1 per day in paid employment. He was renowned for his toughness and endurance, especially his ability to work extremely long hours, often in howling winds, snow storms and freezing temperatures. In 1929, for example, he had walked for two days in significant pain to seek treatment for a twisted bowel and yet he also used the opportunity to carry out a 66-lb. (30-kg) pack of skins.

One of the most respected representatives of the Tasmanian fur-trapping tradition of the early to mid-twentieth century, Youd was known as ‘King of the Snarers’. Lake Youd near Lake Meston is named after him. He died on 7 September 1982 at Deloraine. Predeceased by one son, he was survived by his wife and by their other son and four daughters.