WildArk in partnership with Aussie Ark and Global Wildlife Conservation, has released Tasmanian devils back into the wild on mainland Australia as part of a bold plan to rewild Australia. 26 Tasmanian devils have been released into a 400-hectare (nearly 1,000 acres) wildlife sanctuary on Barrington Tops on NSW, Australia.
For the first time in 3,000 years, the Tasmanian devil is back in the wild on mainland Australia, a historic moment that is critical to rewild Australia, the country with the world’s worst mammal extinction rate. Aussie Ark, in partnership with Global Wildlife Conservation and WildArk, recently released 11 Tasmanian devils into a 400-hectare (nearly 1,000 acres) wildlife sanctuary on Barrington Tops. Actors Elsa Pataky and Chris Hemsworth, friends of WildArk, helped release some of the animals—including Lenny and Lisa—into their new home.
“In 100 years, we are going to be looking back at this day as the day that set in motion the ecological restoration of an entire country,” said Tim Faulkner, president of Aussie Ark, which has been working with Tasmanian devils for more than 10 years with the goal of someday returning them to the wild. “Not only is this the reintroduction of one of Australia’s beloved animals, but of an animal that will engineer the entire environment around it, restoring and rebalancing our forest ecology after centuries of devastation from introduced foxes and cats and other invasive predators. Because of this reintroduction and all of the hard work leading up to it, someday we will see Tasmanian devils living throughout the great eastern forests as they did 3,000 years ago.”
Tasmanian devils vanished entirely from mainland Australia in large part because they were outcompeted by introduced dingoes, which hunt in packs. Dingoes never made it to Tasmania, but across the island state, a transmissible, painful and fatal disease called Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD)—the only known contagious cancer—decimated up to 90 percent of the wild population of Tasmanian devils. Just 25,000 devils are left in the wild of Tasmania today.
For the last decade, the Aussie Ark team has been building an insurance population of Tasmanian devils and learning everything they can about the animals, including about their reproductive physiology, behavior, and ecological needs, all leading up to the reintroduction, which took place on September 10 and followed a successful assisted trial release with 15 Tasmanian devils. Twenty-six total devils now call the wild of mainland Australia home.
Aussie Ark selected the particular devils for reintroduction based on those most suitable to breed with one another without any inbreeding. The wild sanctuary will prevent the spread of disease, feral pests, noxious weeds and fire, which was catastrophic earlier this year for the country. The wild sanctuary will also keep cars out, ensuring that the devils learn not to associate cars with food—an association that could be deadly when they are more widely released.
Aussie Ark, NSW’s largest independently owned and operated conservation organisation, houses seven keystone species once native to the Barrington Tops. Our vision is to create robust insurance populations of threatened Australian mammals like the Tasmanian Devil, Eastern Quoll, and Long-Nosed Potoroo, suitable for release into predator-free sanctuaries and eventual reintroduction to the wild.
