Тасманийский дьявол под угрозой исчезновения

Tasmanian devils, the world’s largest living marsupials, are endangered but a large network of people are working hard to save them. Only ten years ago devils were considered common and abundant. But sadly, the Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumor Disease, in a very short period of time, wiped out entire populations of devils throughout Tasmania. Only about 5,000 mature Tasmanian devils remain in the wild today, down from an estimated 150,000 individuals in the 1990s. This population collapse is largely due to the infectious cancer called the devil facial tumor disease (DFTD). This rapid decline in the devils, which are Tasmania’s top marsupial predators, has resulted in a sharp rise in the activity of feral cats and other invasive species, and a decrease in native mammals. Another threat to the devil’s survival is deforestation, where 2,500 hectares of old growth forests are logged annually in Tasmania. For the last ten years, researchers and captive breeding experts of the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program have been establishing an “insurance population” consisting of hundreds of captive devils at zoos and sanctuaries in Tasmania and mainland Australia. The aim of this project was to eventually release the captive devils back to the wild and rebuild populations in areas where disease had wiped devils out. The first release was a test release of sorts and took place on an isolated island in 2014. A second, bigger release took place in November of 2015, on the Forestier Peninsula to re-establish a wild population of disease-free devils in Tasmania’s southeast. The most recent release, in August of 2016, was a major step in the species’ recovery. Thirty-three devils were given a trial vaccine and then released. And in early 2017, a major scientific breakthrough occurred, with the discovery of a potential cure for the devil facial tumor disease (DFTD). Though biologists would still need to work on repopulating areas where the devil has been wiped out, the cure offers hope that diseased populations in the wild could be treated and one day the cancer could be eliminated from the populations entirely.