This is great result for Australia zoo and is an excellent example of what zoos can do for the native fauna. I only wish that the prgram had started earlier, instead of at the leventh hour.
I remember seeing Tasmanian Devils in several wildlife Parks in Tasmania, and also seeing them at night in the wild too. Even then I noticed many seemed to have lumpy growths/bare patches on their faces and thinking how unnatural they appeared and that maybe they were fight scars, perhaps in fact these were tumours? This would have been back(80's-90's era) before the facial tumour disease had been diagnosed as such. Can the disease be treated/eradicted? Will it be possible in the future to release disease-free Devils safely back into the wild to boost the population? Its hard to think of the once common Tassie Devil being threatened with extinction and following a similar path to the Thylacine- both having apparently suffered from debilitating diseases, as well as, in the Thylacine's case, mass persecution. Lets hope the Devil can be saved okay.
This is a very long term breeding program. although research is still going on to try and find a cure the most likely outcome is the devil will actually become extinct in the wild first and left that way for some time to ensure they actually are extinct. Only then would it be suitable to release captive bred devils back in to Tasmania.
Exactly what I was going to say. Even though devils give birth to between 20-40 joeys each birthing. And there is no way to hand raise a neonate devil. Survival of the fittest from birth for these guys.
Hey, I had no idea the situation was that serious. I find it hard to believe a species so common in the wild until quite recently has now reached such a crisis point. What a scary(but interesting) situation. I sincerely hope all the efforts and research to conserve it longterm do pay off.
There's a link at the bottom of the article in the initial post giving more detail if anyone is interested and didn't see it.
In relation to the devils and the cost of conservation there was an interesting article in The Australian newspaper a week or so ago. Basically the article was about some scientists who feel that with the scarcity of conservation funds and the huge amount of workl needed, the millions of dollers spent on one charismatic species, such as the devil, would have been better off spent on other less charismatic species. They used the example of the devil to say that the money spent on it would have saved 30 other endangered tassie species. What I found interesting was the species they chose. Most of them were obscure species of insect and plants. Nothing wrong with that but my thought would be. There is only one species of devil, it is an important part of the tassie ecology, there is no other species like and it is the last in a family(?). The species that these scientists would have preferred the money be spent on were things like stag beetles, orchids etc. While I wouldn't argue that they are important. Just how many species of stag beetles are there? Would the loss of one species be as important as the loss of the devil?
Simple answer: yes. Morally, ethically speaking the same were true if we Homo sapiens as a species would go extinct otherwise: the answer would still be a yes. For what it is worth we are but mere travellers on this Earth, and all species - fauna and flora - are of equal importance. We as humans have a duty to that Earth and that duty is not to choose which is more important. As a conservationist I would add that I find it a travesty that us in that profession would even subscribe to either theory where either you put in massive resources for one or be inclined to go with the latter and put that same amount towards saving 30 species. I subscribe to a third theory that discourses that we cannot put a single figure on saving a or all species and all species are worth saving no matter at what cost. It is an equal travesty that we first put ourselves before the rest of the Natural World, create the conditions for mass extinction of a diverse range of species, have already allowed to let quite a number go extinct and sometimes unnoticed and then deem ourselves morally and ethically above all else to decide which species should survive and which not.
For Tasmania, the Devil is a high profile species. Not only as the largest living marsupial Predator(since the extinction/loss of the Thylacine) but its also identified through its unusual name 'Tasmanian Devil' with the State and is(or was?) certainly something of an iconic/tourist attraction there too. Imagine how Tasmania's image would suffer if Devils went the way of Thylacines(even if not for the same reasons) and now became extinct. I think this must at least be partly behind the current drive to save them rather than spend the money on a number of small and low profile species.
