A new hope: captive-bred, vaccinated Tasmanian Devils returned to the wild

October 12, 2015 • 12:30 pm

by Grania

There’s some good news from Tasmania. Captive-bred Tasmanian Devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) that have been vaccinated against Devil facial tumour disease, the parasitic cancer that has been devastating the species since the 1990s; have been released into the wild, in the hope that they will carry the immunity back to the wilds and breed with the population there.

It is a small and tenuous start, and depends on the immune response induced by the vaccine remaining active, as well as the wild population accepting the newcomers. In an effort to familiarise the local population with the newcomers, behaviorist Elizabeth Reid-Wainscote scattered feces of the captive-bred group around Narawntapu National Park weeks ahead of the time of release.

Sadly, four have been killed in road accidents already. The Program Manager of the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program, David Pemberton says

“The ultimate goal for the STDP is to return most captive devils to the wild, but to return devils to areas where they were once abundant also involves releasing them into areas where other threats, such as roadkill, exist.”

A similar program was attempted back in 2013 that was so successful that the population’s impact on the island’s ecology has to be very carefully monitored.

This is a project that is not guaranteed success, but it will be remarkable if determined conservationists and scientists manage to pull this species back from the brink of extinction.

1280px-TasmanianDevil_1888
Sarcophilus harrisii

 

And as an addendum, I loved the tongue-in-cheek comment by a reader on the original article.

 

comments

40 thoughts on “A new hope: captive-bred, vaccinated Tasmanian Devils returned to the wild”

    1. Cute, but with a widespread reputation as “grouchy”. Now who could have started that accusation?

      1. They are biting each other and they are rather violent. The Koala bear has an undeserved image as slow and passive. But the one that blew my brain has always been the Platypus and I always knew the duck-beaver part – but finding out the males are poisonous is very freaky in mammaldom.

      2. Warner Bros’ didn’t exaggerate very much; the face cancer problem became an epidemic because devils are so aggressive – because in RL, they regularly bite each other on the face.

  5. I’ve always found the images of Tasmanian Devils ravaged with cancer so distressing, it’s excellent to see this.

    Ain’t science great? 🙂

    I love the autism comment. Good thing they didn’t rely on prayer to fix the problem either.

  6. Tasmanian devils are amoung my favorite animals. They are just so fierce.

    I really hope that program works out, and that the vaccine stays alive in the wild.

  8. I understand working to repopulate animals whose populations were ravaged by humans, but why should we be helping these creatures, who are merely succumbing to non-human natural causes? Isn’t it the evolutionary arms race that “makes” species adapt or die off?

      1. We do it all the time … Darwin did it with pigeons, mankind did it with wolves. For God’s sake we’ve done most this of our foodstuffs. Nature does it all the time.

        The basic problem here, lies in seeing mankind somehow separate from nature.

    2. Seriously? So you’re saying we should save people and to hell with everything else? That’s about the most callous thing I’ve ever read.

        1. I read this:
          “but why should we be helping these creatures, who are merely succumbing to non-human natural causes?”
          I take that to mean, since we didn’t cause their problems, let them die. My assumption is that you don’t feel that way about people. I don’t see another way to read that.
          If I misunderstood, let me know what you actually meant.

      2. On the other hand, when it comes to smallpox or guinea worm, we’re quite prepared to say save the people and to hell with the parasite. In this case we’re saying save the Devils and to hell with the cancer.

        Many such interventions involve choosing sides, helping one species at the expense of another. I think it’s legitimate to examine these choices with some skepticism, rather than simply trusting that our intuition or mammalian chauvinism will somehow get it right.

        In this case I think we probably did make the right call. But it shouldn’t be a crime to raise the question.

    3. Because it seems likely these species were ravaged by humans? From Grania’s link:

      “As the extinction of these two species came at a similar time to human habitation of Australia, hunting by humans and land clearance have been mooted as possible causes.[24] Critics of this theory point out that as indigenous Australians only developed boomerangs and spears for hunting around 10,000 years ago, a critical fall in numbers due to systematic hunting is unlikely. They also point out that caves inhabited by Aborigines have a low proportion of bones and rock paintings of devils, and suggest that this is an indication that it was not a large part of indigenous lifestyle. A scientific report in 1910 claimed that Aborigines preferred the meat of herbivores rather than carnivores.[25] The other main theory for the extinction was that it was due to the climate change brought on by the most recent ice age.[24]

      While dingoes are seen as the main reason for the disappearance of devils from the mainland, another theory is that the increasing aridity of the mainland caused it, while the population in Tasmania has been largely unaffected as the climate remains cool and moist.[26] According to this theory, the dingo was only a secondary cause.[27]”

      [Australia]

      “The Tasmanian devil is a nocturnal and crepuscular hunter, spending the days in dense bush or in a hole.[60] It has been speculated that nocturnalism may have been adopted to avoid predation by eagles and humans.[61]”

      [Tasmania]

      1. Alas, the dangers of not clicking the link. However, the evidence for human causes seems to be weak, according to what you posted. Also, the current issue is cancerous face tumors. So unless we were giving them endless piles of rodent flavored chewing tobacco, I doubt humans caused their current predicament.

    5. I understand what you’re saying. I personally support the program as I support numerous other conservation efforts, but I don’t think your question was out of bounds.

    6. At this point pretty much every land creature bigger than a pound has had their ‘environment ravaged by humans.’ Tasmania is populated. We destroy native habitat. Devil populations are forced to flee or get concentrated in small areas because of us. This promotes epidemics and may (though its by no means certain) change their behavior. So yes, it is indirectly our problem, even if we aren’t the proximate cause.

      Right now the globe looks like it may be going through a massive extinction event with human expansion and ecology manipulation being one of the root causes. Our impact on global ecosystems may be literally killing off species we don’t even know exist. While certainly we didn’t introduce this face cancer virus or whatever it is, the fact that marsupial species like the devils are teetering on the verge of extinction due to invasive species, habitat loss, etc… certainly is partially due to us. The last straw, the one that ‘breaks the devils back’ wasn’t our doing…but lots of that huge weighty bale underneath it probably was.

      1. Back when this tumor disease first started to spread, I wondered whether it would create a selection pressure for more congenial Devils less inclined to bite each other in the face. Maybe that’s a good thing, I thought at the time; maybe that’s how Devils will adapt to living in the margins of a human-dominated world.

        But it looks like the tumors have spread much faster than the genes for congeniality. So I suppose intervention is necessary to rein in the tumors and give the genes time to catch up.

      2. “At this point pretty much every land creature bigger than a pound has had their ‘environment ravaged by humans.’ ”

        I don’t think you need that qualifier. Grassland birds, for instance, are disappearing along with their habitat. Many insects have suffered from industrial farming practices…

  9. Good news. Australia has such unique fauna – and Tasmania is such a unique subset of that. Its good to see efforts to undo the impact of humanity. The word ‘thylacine’ comes to mind…

    1. I am still waiting for the YECs and Flood exponents to tell me how these devils got to the Ark and back.

      Anyway I lived in Tasmania for a few years and spent some time out in the bush. At night the name Devil was most apt when you would here them fighting etc,

      One of the reasons for the road kill rates was that they love to feed off the road kill already there. They are to stubborn to get of the road when a vehicle approaches. The old Wraner Brothers cartoon really nailed it. Or at least in my own boyhood memories anyway LOL

  10. That’s good news for the poor things. I’ve always liked those Devils. I hope they’re handsome Devils and not doofuses or the plan won’t work. 😉

  11. Thanks. This made my day. It’s such a tragic story, and I’ve long wondered if there’s anything to be done. It seems perhaps there is. Excellent.

  12. What a wonderful effort by these scientists for our planetary ecology and genetic heritage. I hope they’re successful.

    Tangentially, I’ve always thought Bobcat Goldthwait would have more accurately pegged himself if he’d chosen Tasmanian Devil Goldthwait as his nommme, since that’s closer to how his adopted voice sounded to me.

  15. There is an interesting article by Abbie Smith (now Dr Abbie Smith) on the problem:
    scienceblogs.com/erv/2008/09/22/okay-so-there-are-like/

  17. I wonder if resistance to the cancer has begun to be evolved. For example, if the cancer expresses various proteins on its surface, a knockout mutation that prevented an individual from making one of them could enable its immune system to recognize and kill the cancer cells.

  18. I was on Maria Island (Tasmania) in 2014 and, considering that there are only 80 or 90 Devils there, was lucky to see a small group of them in the wild. Funnily enough, these three “Devils” were being chased across a lawn by a couple of geese who weren’t at all impressed with their name.

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