Page 51 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #05

brief confrontation. But on that showing, they might just Above left: Since opening for business in 2006, Devils@Cradle has
as well have been called angels as devils. Wade Anthony, become one of the 30 or so centres involved in breeding
managing director
“Their reputation is not what they are,” confirms devils as an insurance population to safeguard against
of Devils@Cradle
Wade Anthony, who owns Devils@Cradle, a breeding extinction. It has about 50 devils, including nine pairs –
breeding centre,
centre for native Tasmanian carnivorous marsupials in feeds a four- when I speak to Wade in mid-February, it’s the middle of
the north of Tasmania. “That comes from the cartoon month-old devil. the breeding season, and once the females are pregnant,
character Taz, which has got a lot to answer for.” Taz Above right: a they give birth to their tiny babies just three weeks later.
devil undergoes a
was created by Warner Bros in the 1960s, though later
pre-release health
found fame in the 1990s. check. Below: ISLAND REFUGE
Wade releases a Though devils were once widespread across mainland
TERRIBLE TABLE MANNERS devil into the wild. Australia (there’s even fossil evidence for them in
Having said that, devil feedings can be famously noisy, New Guinea), they disappeared from everywhere but
especially if you get more than two or three trying to Tasmania long before European settlers arrived. This was
feed on a single carcass. Geoff King, who used to run a probably down to increasing aridity on the mainland and
Michelin-starred devil restaurant on his coastal property competition from non-native dingos, scientists say.
t, until his
On the ‘island off the island’, however, they thrived, at
near Marrawah, also in Tasmania’s north-west until his On the island off the is
untimely death in 2013, once told me he’d see en 13 on a least until the first half of f the 20th century when conflict
single carcass. His ‘feedings’ were enlivened b by a live with livestock and poultry
y farmers turned them into pests.
audio feed to the hide that relayed not just the eir edgy But, of course, most perse ecution was concentrated on the
which was hunted to extinction.
vocalisations, but the sound of bones crunching and larger Tasmanian tiger, w
manian devil was a largely unknown
sinews tearing as they chowed down dinner. Nevertheless, the Tasm
“The quiet side of devils is very interesting,” quantity until 1 996, when a contagious cancer
says Wade. “They’re all individuals, you can’t called Devil l Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD)
pigeon-hole them. Some are very confident, was first d iscovered. Where it came from
nows, but it spread through the
some aggressive, some can be curious, some nobody kn
can be shy. The problem is their gruff voice, populatio
on like a bushfire – numbers
which makes them all sound antagonistic, bu ut they dropped f from an estimated 250,000 to
don’t have any other way to talk.” He’s also no oticed fewer than
n 50,000 in 2009. The most
blished in February, shows
that sibling devils at his centre maintain a close recent research, pub
relationship throughout their lives, so they may not populations have de eclined by an average of 77 per
be purely solitary as usually depicted. cent in areas affecte d by DFTD.
But as Greg Irons p
points out, you can “take a positive
hanks to the disease, Tasmanian
out of any situation – th
“THEIR GRUFFVOICE MAKES devils are now known al l over the world.” Indeed, as well
S
as more than 30 captiv ve-breeding centres throughout
THEM SOUNDANTAGONISTTIC, Australia – there’s at least one in every state except
for Northern T
Territory – there are three in New
Y
BUTTHEYDON’THAVEANY Zealand and t two in the USA.
But it’s bee
n the response in their home
OTHERWAYTOTALK.” state that Gre eg has found most hopeful.
Spring 2018 BBC Wildlife 51