– By Vinayak Barot
New Delhi: The Tasmanian Devils carnivorous marsupials have returned to mainland Australia for the first time in some 3,000 years. The director of conservation group Aussie Ark – Liz Gabriel said that, “Seeing those devils released into a wild landscape — it’s a really emotional moment,”
Gabriel said Aussie Ark aims for devils eventually to live in non-protected areas in mainland Australia, with the hope the devils will contribute to keeping cat and fox populations under control.
For now, the devils released this year and those expected to be released in the coming years won’t go into the wild just yet. Instead, they will receive supplementary feedings and be monitored by remote cameras, with some devils tagged with GPS trackers to learn more about how they adjust in their new environment, Gabriel added.
“We dream of many more sanctuaries with devils in them and really growing the numbers of the species to protect that species, but also the animals in the environment around them,” she said. “This is just the beginning.”
Ecologist at University of Tasmania – Menna Jones said that Tasmanian devils, which were once called Sarcophilus satanicus or “Satanic flesh-lover,” went extinct in mainland Australia before the arrival of Europeans. Scientists believe the introduction of carnivorous dingoes, a surge in the indigenous human population, and a devastating dry season cause by a prolonged El Nino caused the devil to migrate to present-day Tasmania.
“I think any one of those three factors alone probably wouldn’t have caused extinction — but the three of them together likely caused the devil to become extinct on the mainland,” Menna Jones added.
The Australian government had tried to protect this animal since 1941 and the conservationists have worked to bolster their populations for years, citing their importance as top predators who can suppress invasive species like Cats and foxes.
One of the biggest blows to conservation efforts came in the 1990s when a communicable cancer called devil facial tumor disease — which passes between devils through their bites while mating and causes large tumors that prevent them from eating — reduced the population from some 140000 to as few as 20,000.
An Australia conservationist Nick Mooney, who has worked with Tasmanian devils for some 40 years, said feral felines are likely to return to hunting for a food source rather than relying on carrion in competition with the devils.
“There is an argument that by putting devils into a situation where you stop the other carnivores scavenging is that those animals, like cats and foxes, will simply start hunting. You could actually make a conservation problem where it didn’t exist before,” Nick Mooney said.
