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201504Oct12:51

Bring­ing Dev­ils back into the Tas­man­ian wild

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 04 Octo­ber 2015 | mod­i­fied 04 Octo­ber 2015
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Sep­tem­ber 25th marks a defin­ing moment in the fight to save the Tas­man­ian Devil.

Tasmanina devil healthy captured20 healthy dev­ils have now been released back into the wild at Narawn­tapu National Park (NNP) in North­ern Tas­ma­nia, vac­ci­nated with a poten­tially game chang­ing vac­cine against the Devil Facial Tumour Dis­ease (DFTD). This field trial will test the immu­ni­sa­tion response against DFTD to help refine and develop more effec­tive vac­ci­na­tion tech­niques. Re-​wilding through captive-​bred insur­ance pop­u­la­tion ani­mals is an impor­tant part of the Pro­gram as it assists in increas­ing the genetic diver­sity of sup­pressed wild pop­u­la­tions as well as directly increas­ing numbers.

The ani­mals released at NNP will join exist­ing dev­ils already liv­ing in the Park. Save The Tas­man­ian Devil Pro­gram staff will return two weeks after the release, then four weeks, then eight and then 12 weeks later to mon­i­tor the devil pop­u­la­tion. Unfor­tu­nately, two of the recently released dev­ils were found dead as road kill on 29 September.

The 20 dev­ils (11 males and 9 females) come from an Insur­ance Pop­u­la­tion housed in Free Range Enclo­sures (FREs) at Bicheno and Launceston.

This field trial is a tan­gi­ble step in the jour­ney to bring the devil back into the Tas­man­ian wild; the next mile­stone will be to see them start breed­ing in the wild and thus fur­ther ensur­ing their chances of sur­vival into the future. It is an impor­tant step in ensur­ing the Tas­man­ian devil’s long term sur­vival in the wild. This pro­gram is about re-​establishing and boost­ing wild pop­u­la­tions in Tasmania.

Sig­nif­i­cant advances in the Insur­ance Pop­u­la­tion and work to pro­tect iso­lated devil pop­u­la­tions have enabled the Save the Tas­man­ian Devil Pro­gram (STDP) to develop and com­mence this next step in the species’ con­ser­va­tion. It is part of the Wild Devil Recov­ery Project that places empha­sis on pop­u­la­tion mon­i­tor­ing, field research and test­ing of pos­si­ble vac­cines and immu­ni­sa­tion tech­niques, result­ing in the imple­men­ta­tion of work to man­age wild devil populations.

The Tas­man­ian Devil, as a species, is now more secure than it has been at any time dur­ing the past decade due to the out­stand­ing suc­cess of the Insur­ance Pop­u­la­tion Pro­gram. How­ever the Devil con­tin­ues to face seri­ous ongo­ing chal­lenges to its sur­vival in the wild. That is why the Tas­man­ian Gov­ern­ment is redou­bling its efforts in facil­i­tat­ing fur­ther research into the devil facial tumour dis­ease as well toward the devel­op­ment of effec­tive vaccines.

The release of the healthy dev­ils is an impor­tant new phase in our ongo­ing efforts to save our iconic species, the Tas­man­ian Devil, in the wild. We owe it to this pre­cious and iconic species to secure a strong, dis­ease free future in its nat­ural set­ting, where it belongs — in the wild.

The Wild Devil Recov­ery Project is a joint ini­tia­tive between the Men­zies Insti­tute for Med­ical Research and the Save the Tas­man­ian Devil Pro­gram (STDP) — the pro­gram col­lab­o­rates with research insti­tutes and zoos from around the world — and is sup­ported through fund­ing from the Tas­man­ian Government.


(Source: Tas­man­ian Gov­ern­ment media release, 26.09.2015; Save the Tas­man­ian Devil lat­est news, 29.09.2015)


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