A MYSTERIOUS disease has wiped out 90 per cent of some populations of Tasmanian devils in the past three years. Facial tumours may have killed one third of the island’s total population, a workshop in Tasmania heard last week.
Scientists fear that the problem is having knock-on effects on other species. Although Tasmanian devils are mainly scavengers, they also eat sick or small mammals and a range of invertebrates. “These animals are very important in the whole ecology of Tasmania,” says the meeting’s organiser, Rob White from the University of Tasmania in Hobart. Reports suggest there are more than the…
