Feisty Tasmanian devils roaming Australian mainland again
I wasn't expecting to see a story on Tasmanian devils in the health and science section of The Washington Post last week, but there it was and here it is.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/feisty-tasmanian-devils-roaming-australian-mainland-again/2020/10/07/33fcb172-0852-11eb-8719-0df159d14794_story.html
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Tasmanian devils, the carnivorous marsupials whose feisty, frenzied eating habits won the animals cartoon fame, have returned to mainland Australia for the first time in some 3,000 years.
“Seeing those devils released into a wild landscape — it’s a really emotional moment,” said Liz Gabriel, director of conservation group Aussie Ark, which led the release effort in partnership with other conservation groups.
The 11 most recently released devils began exploring their new home once they were freed from round, white cages at the nearly 1,000-acre Barrington Tops wildlife refuge in New South Wales state, about 190 kilometers (120 miles) north of Sydney.
There's more at the link.
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In response, researchers established an insurance population of cancer-free devils in wild-type enclosures in Australia’s island state of Tasmania. But the releases in July and September are the first time the squat mammals — all of which have tested negative for the contagious cancer — have been released on the mainland in a protected wild landscape.
"Bites while mating." Have you seen their teeth?
