Devil plight gives urgent edge to mammal meeting

July 03, 2007

The current scourge of Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) in Tasmanian devils has given an urgent edge to discussions about mammal extinctions at the Australian Mammal Society's annual conference at the University of New England this week.

In less than 15 years since its discovery, the disease has led to the loss of well over half of Tasmania's wild devil population, and devil numbers are dropping rapidly.

In a wide-ranging address on mammal extinctions, Professor Chris Johnson from James Cook University set the keynote for the conference when he pointed out that the extinction of large native predators – such as, in prehistoric times, the marsupial lion, and, more recently, the Tasmanian tiger – had left the field open for indiscriminate killers such as feral cats. The Tasmanian devil (pictured here) is the largest surviving marsupial carnivore.

Papers on DFTD presented at the conference emphasised both the urgency, for for the survival of the species, of isolating uninfected devils from those infected by the disease, and the serious impact on Tasmania's ecology of the decline in the devil population. Nick Mooney, a wildlife biologist with the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries and Water, said he feared the devil could become "functionally extinct", meaning that it could become "so rare that it was not doing its job" within the ecosystem.

"Feral cats appear to be increasing in general, particularly in DFTD areas," Mr Mooney said. "This may have important effects on small birds and mammals such as the New Holland mouse." "Most alarmingly," he continued, "evidence of foxes is increasing – mostly in DFTD areas. A fully established fox population would directly endanger – through predation and/or competition – Tasmanian bettongs, Tasmanian native hens, eastern barred-bandicoots, and eastern quolls, and put severe local pressure on spotted-tailed quolls, New Holland mice, hooded plovers, masked and banded lapwings, little terns, and short-tailed shearwaters. Such a fox population would have the potential to back-fill the devil niche, making any recovery very difficult."

The 100 delegates to the conference discussed the merits of proposals to isolate uninfected devils on islands, and to reintroduce the species onto mainland Australia.

This is the 53rd scientific meeting of the Australian Mammal Society, and is being held at UNE over the three days from Monday the 2nd to Wednesday the 4th of July. UNE's Dr Karl Vernes, one of the organisers of the conference, said delegates had come from all over Australia, as well as from Canada, Japan and Germany. "The central theme of the conference is the biology, ecology, and conservation and/or management of Australian mammals," he said. Animals under scrutiny this year include kangaroos, koalas, quolls, bats, sugar gliders, rock wallabies, antechinuses, quokkas, possums, wombats, potoroos and bandicoots.

At present (and for the next two years) the council of the Australian Mammal Society is based in Armidale, with UNE's Professor Fritz Geiser as President and Dr Vernes as Secretary.

Professor Johnson, who recently published a definitive book on Australia's mammal extinctions, studied at UNE for 10 years, gaining a Bachelor's degree in natural resources management and completing a PhD study of kangaroo behaviour. "The Bachelor of Natural Resources degree program was excellent," he said. "I'm really glad I came to Armidale and stayed here for 10 years."

Posted by Jim Scanlan at July 3, 2007 05:15 PM