Racing to Save the Tasmanian Devil 3

As I continue learning about efforts to save the Devil, it’s time to head south to Hobart, the state capital, headquarters for Tassie devil research. The map shows our route across the island.

Here’s a map of Tasmania that shows the path of our journey across the island. It also shows Maria Island, a beautiful and peaceful place we visited during this time, hoping to see devils in the wild.

Our intrepid group of Jenny Graves, her husband John, grandson Felix, my husband Greg, and I decide to avoid the freeway and take winding Highway A5 through mountains called the Great Western Tiers in the heart of Tasmania to reach the capital, Hobart.

As we wend our way, we pass by dense forests and broad vistas.

The moist forest comes right up to the edge of the road.

Later we could see all the way across the mountains to the distant ocean.

We reached the summit—SNOW!! No snow around Melbourne! Felix got John to stop.

John and Felix got into a snowball fight.

Vistas changed across the summit.

At first we’re awed by massive walls of rock.

Then scrubby ground fronting on the Great Lake, a popular place for trout fishing.

Meeting the Director of the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program

Everyone calls David Pemberton, Director of the Save the Devil Program, “Doozie.” The day after our arrival in Hobart, Doozie welcomed me, Greg, and Jenny to tell us the latest about efforts to learn more about the devil and create populations that are free of disease.

He points out a difficulty that comes from the determination of the devils to do things their way. It’s difficult to keep any population of these animals separate from the danger of disease. He shows us a video of a devil climbing a tree while pursuing an opossum, and another one struggling to cross a bridge using its tail and its chin to get across. A devil will hold its breath and dive under an obstacle to get across a stretch of water.

You can see that even a bridge designed to be impossible for animals to cross doesn’t stop a determined Tassie devil. And if it were ill, it could bring its disease with it.

A way of developing a wild, disease free population of devils was needed.

A Trip to Maria Island

Luckily an answer wasn’t hard to find. Off the Tasmanian coast north of Hobart is Maria Island, the main part of Maria Island National Park. The island has no permanent human inhabitants, just a few come-and-go park rangers and tourists who visit, mostly during the summer holidays. There are no paved roads and no vehicles other than an occasional park ranger truck on a dirt road.

Captive raised devils are released onto the island and provided with food as they safely learn how to survive in the wild. Once they adapt and find mates and have wild-born offspring, the young devils can be captured and released on the Tasmanian mainland.

John and Felix returned to home, But Jenny could stay a bit longer and join us on a journey to Maria Island to see for ourselves where the healthy young devils learned how to be wild. The ferry left the mainland in mid-morning and picked up the latest return passengers at 3:30, so we had only about 5 hours to explore.

After leaving the ferry, we took a short walk past a few old uninhabited buildings used now by overnight campers.

Two large and rare Cape Barren geese strolled by an old building, clearly paired up. I had to remind myself that October was springtime “down under.”

Soon we were alone, strolling down a rain-dampened path into the forest. We knew seeing Tassie devils would be unlikely since it was daytime, but we were eager to experience this environment that suits their way of being.

The environment here is similar to that of Narawntapu National Park, with twisted old eucalyptus trees by the path.

Clusters of tiny blue blossoms by the path reminded us again, it’s springtime.

Along the way where the forest thinned out we saw an occasional wombat, good Tassie devil food.

The wombats are used to people, so they just keep on nibbling away without concern.

The devils also sometimes take over wombat burrows and claim them for their own.

This burrow might belong to a wombat, but maybe a Tassie devil had taken it over.

The closest we got to seeing a devil on Maria Island was this footprint in the muddy trail near the den pictured above.

We returned to the dock by a different route over an open meadow.

We loved watching this wombat mom and her baby munching their way across the meadow.

We stopped to eat our picnic lunch under a shade tree, feeling quite peaceful with the quiet when there are no vehicle traffic sounds. The clouds gathered, then got darker and thicker as we walked back to the dock.

We could see white caps begin to show and knew it could be quite a ride back to the Tasmanian mainland.

The journey to the Triabuona harbor felt more like an amusement park ride than a boat trip, but none of us got sea sick. We drove back to Hobart, glad that that some young devils had a safe wild place to grow up without the danger of being infected by Devil Facial Tumor Disease.

In my next post I’ll get into the nitty gritty aspects of research on the nature of DTFD and how this knowledge helps in finding ways to outsmart the disease. You’ll meet researcher Greg Woods who devoted his research to understanding the nature of DFTD. He’s learned that it affects its victims by sneaking past the sentry immune system cells that would normally recognize and destroy such an invader.

For my earlier two Tasmanian devil posts, go here.