Death of the Devils
Tasmanian devils are one of Australia's most well known animals. Thanks to cartoons and movies most people in the western world know about this strange animal despite them only existing in a small corner of the world. Though the real devils are very different from their cartoon counterpart.
The Tasmanian Devil is a mostly nocturnal carnivorous marsupial which was once found throughout Australia and its islands but is now only found in the wilds of one its namesake Tasmania. Weighing around 8 kilograms on average the Devil is around the size of a small dog but dont underestimate them just because they are the size of a Jack Russel the Tasmanian devil is the largest carnivorous marsupial alive today and has one of the strongest bite per unit of body mass of any land predator. The name Devil was given to these small creatures when they were first discovered because of the “unholy” noises explorers would hear during the night.
But unfortunately tragedy has fallen on these strange and wonderful creatures, and conservationists are fighting to save them from potential extinction.
In the 90s a deadly disease was discovered to be spreading throughout the devil populations, known as DFTD or Devil Facial Tumor Disease, since its discovery the number of Tasmanian devils in the wild has plummeted and in 2008 they were declared an endangered species by the IUCN Red list, DFTD has been found to have cause up to 80% of the decline in devil numbers of the last few years.
But what exactly is this disease? DFTD is a horrible affliction which causes painful cancerous lumps to form on the Devils usually around the facial area, these lumps swell up the mouth and jaw making it hard to eat and also around the eyes sometimes causing partial blindness, with a 100% mortality rate to those infected a lot of infected devils will die of starvation or a secondary infection,
the disease is one of the few example of transmissible cancers and is spread through ingesting blood or flesh of an infected animal. This disease spread so rapidly in devils because of how the devil interact with each other, in Devil society everything is fought over constantly and as a result Devils biting each other is very common occurrence which has unfortunately allowed the disease to spread very quickly once introduced to a population.
If this wasn't bad enough the Tasmanian devil populations has also been harmed by the every spreading human development of wild areas, a 2000s study found Devils were particularly at risk of dying in motor accidents due to their scavenger nature and the abundance of road kill in the areas they live.
Fortunately efforts are already under way to help save these fascinating creatures from extinction, there are many scientific projects working hard to try and find a cure or a treatment for DFTD, also Conversationalists are keeping captive populations of Tasmanian Devils in the hopes of having a safe disease free population to breed from that can be reintroduced into the wild if the devils ever do die out.
A lot of work is also being done in the field studying the disease and testing wild populations to find out which are safe and which are infected so steps can be taken to prevent cross over and to ensure safe populations are not being exposed to other avenues of infection
unfortunately many devils today are still suffering from DFTD but with the help of concerned individuals and passionate experts hopefully the devils wont be damned just yet.
If you would like to read more about the Tasmanian devils or if you want to help support those fighting the help them i have included some links below you can follow
Or if you would like to read more about different conservation issues facing the unique animals of this world you should check out our story about vulture conservation.
Jones, Menna E. (2000). "Road upgrade, road mortality and remedial measures: impacts on a population of eastern quolls and Tasmanian devils". Wildlife Research. 27 (3): 289–296.
https://www.devilark.org.au/tasmanian-devil/conservation-research/
http://www.tasmaniandevilpark.com/