Tasmanian devils have a bad reputation.
These scrappy carnivorous marsupials are short-tempered and tend to lash out at fellow devils who encroach on their mate or meal. They are insatiable, feeding in packs and consuming entire carcasses— bones, fur, and organs. In the past, they lived throughout Australia, but in modern history they have been confined to the island of Tasmania. When early European settlers in Tasmania witnessed the species’ combative group feeds and ghoulish, guttural screams, they called them “devils.” The name stuck.
Despite their disposition, Tasmanian devils are an iconic Australian species and an important part of the ecosystem. But in recent years, they have been nearly eliminated by an insidious illness. In the mid-1990s, grotesque facial tumors began breaking out on the devils’ snouts. Devil facial tumor disease (DFTD) is the first known contagious cancer.
The fatal disease capitalizes on the species’ principal form of interaction with other devils: it is transmitted through biting. Devils bite during communal feeds, brawls, and mating. The tumors swell, making it difficult or impossible for the animal to eat. Devils that contract facial tumors usually die from them within a few months. The disease front swept across the island like a storm and devastated devil populations in its path. It spread so quickly that conservationists feared the species would disappear from the wild within a few decades.
The Tasmanian government and zoos in the region began plans for an insurance program. They hoped to build a captive population that would be genetically robust enough to take the species through a period of wild extinction and reestablish it in its native habitat once conditions would allow. The program was one of a number of proposed conservation activities, which included veterinary diagnostic work, vaccine research, field monitoring, disease suppression trials, and studies of potential offshore island refuges.
Because of the celebrity status of the Tasmanian devil, conservation activities drew the attention of local, national, and international media, the Tasmanian tourist sector, and the public. Activities surrounding the program became a topic of wide debate, political interest, and controversy.
Some stakeholder groups were concerned that investing in the insurance program would drain limited resources from field research, and that the captive program would replace efforts to maintain devils in the wild. Others worried that if people could see devils in captive facilities all over Australia, fewer tourists would visit Tasmania to spot devils in the landscape.
Additional questions arose: Who would “own” the animals entering the program? How dependable were the protocols to keep DFTD far away from the insurance population? This discomfort with the developing insurance population had practical implications. It delayed much-needed animal transfers and drove politically motivated compromises intended to avoid further provoking critics. Confidence in the program started to erode, and key supporters began to question the wisdom of investing in the long-term plan.
As the conflict escalated, project partners proposed a CPSG workshop to openly explore concerns associated with the implementation of the proposed Tasmanian devil insurance program. In 2008, wildlife managers, researchers, policy makers, cultural leaders, and zoo community representatives came together to resolve the issues that had delayed progress. Led by CPSG, they put their heads together to sort through the issues surrounding the controversial program.
“The CPSG planning workshop cleared up many of the concerns and disagreements that were limiting the development of the insurance program. It gave the program its current shape and catalyzed its implementation,” said Rebecca Spindler, Research and Conservation Manager at Taronga Conservation Society Australia. “The workshop was a pivot point to direct investment in devil conservation.”
CPSG’s computer modeling underscored that the problem of saving Tasmanian devils had to be addressed from multiple angles. On this basis, the group devised a series of interlinking programs that could be implemented simultaneously, both protecting devils in their wild habitats and working to preserve the genetic health of the species through the insurance program.
Now, after several years of carrying out the plan, the insurance population has grown to more than 600 devils who live in zoos, freeranging enclosures, an island, and a few fenced-off, disease-free peninsulas. Although the areas that can be isolated this way make up only a small portion of the devil’s range, they are significant enough to shift the project from insurance toward ecological recovery, securing a future for Tasmania’s beloved devils that would not otherwise have been possible. “Devil recovery is complex,” said David Pemberton, who manages the Save the Tasmanian Devil program. “When in doubt, when in need of data, or when in need of guidance for decisions, I turn to the CPSG workshop report.”
