Tasmanian devils doomed by shallow gene pool

Oct 11, 2007, 16:09 GMT

A Tasmanian Devil snarls at Currumbin Sanctuary on the Gold Coast, Australia, Tuesday 30 January 2007. Wildlife experts are trying to save the species with captive breeding and quarantining since 50% of the known devil population of about 160,000 in Tasmania have been wiped out by the deadly but mysterious Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD). EPA/DAVE HUNT

Sydney - Australia's iconic Tasmanian devils are a threatened species because the fierce dog-like creatures have lost the genetic diversity that would ensure their health and underpin their survival, researchers said Thursday.

They are predicting that facial tumours will continue to ravage a population that has halved in number since the 1990s. There are about 100,000 examples of the world's largest surviving carnivorous marsupial left on the island of Tasmania, the last part of Australia where they are found.

A group of 47 cancer-free devils has been despatched to four wildlife parks on the mainland as an insurance against extinction. Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) is believed to pass among the animals when they scrap during the mating season or in fights over food.

Katherine Belov of Sydney University said in a statement that other local species with small gene pools were at risk of dying out because they didn't have the genetic diversity to resist virulent diseases like DFTD.

The platypus and the koala are particular at risk.

'It's a frightening prospect because this loss of genetic diversity opens the door for the emergence and rapid spread of a whole range of new and old diseases,' Belov said.

In a nightmare scenario, the 10-kilogramme animals may survive in foreign zoos and mainland sanctuaries but die out in Tasmania. The species is at such risk that some biologists have advocated reintroducing Tasmanian devils into the wild elsewhere on the continent.

The devil lost out to dingoes and wild dogs on the mainland just a couple of hundred years ago, but has so far held out in Tasmania.