I was sent a link to an article in The Australian that says the Save the Tasmanian Devil program is looking at fencing off parts of Tasmania’s west coast where the disease doesn’t seem to have spread trying to save what disease-free devils are left in the wild.
Hi everyone!
During the Easter school holidays I travelled to Sydney and visited Taronga Zoo and spoke to their devil keeper there about their Devil breeding program for the insurance population. I saw their four female devils (just one year old) and they have another six devils for their breeding program. A problem with captive breeding is the same lack of genetic diversity can occur if the devils in the zoo keep mating, so zoos like Taronga have programs where they send devils out to other captive breeding sites to mix up the genes!
The keeper there was also excited about a new blood test that scientists at the University of Tasmania have developed which can detect whether a devil has DFTD before it shows the signs. This means that insurance populations in captive breeding programs can be protected from the disease if an introduced devil has it.
You can read more about the story here.
Bye!
Ceilidh