You can read the story here.

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

Wildlife Keeper and Tasmanian Devil expert Sarah Mulhall says ‘Tassie Devils are very difficult to breed and we are extremely happy that we’ve had two consecutive years of reproduction.’ Our two young males are progressing very well.

Wildlife Manager Matt Hingley is particularly happy that the two new babies are males, as sires are very important to the success of future breeding programs.

And guess what! A naming competition is underway and along with Sarah Mulhall, I’ll be choosing the winning entries. Two winners will be drawn and you can win an annual pass to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary! How cool is THAT!

So put your thinking caps on and get those entries in! You can send them to greenguardian@cws.org.au – winners will be notified by December 19, 2008

For more info on the competition visit the Currumbin page here.