Cancer Could Wipe Out Tasmanian Devils
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
SYDNEY, Australia — Australian wildlife experts today will discuss a last-ditch effort to save the Tasmanian devil from a lethally contagious facial cancer by establishing healthy populations of the animal on offshore islands.
Tasmanian devils — whose ferocity inspired the Warner Bros ‘Looney Tunes’ cartoon character Taz — are at risk of extinction from hideously disfiguring tumors that cover their faces and prevent them from eating. Scientists are baffled as to where the cancer originated but say it is spread by the animals’ tendency to bite and scratch during boisterous mating.
With up to 80% of devils affected by the cancer in some parts of Tasmania, the species’s best chance of survival may lie on disease-free islands off the coast of the island state. Small numbers of healthy devils have already been moved to zoos on the Australian mainland, but larger populations could be established on suitable islands.
