Tasmanian Devil

TASMANIAN
DEVIL

TASMANIAN
DEVIL

A UNIQUE AND THREATENED ANIMAL

DAVID OWEN AND
DAVID PEMBERTON

This edition published in 2011
First published in 2005

Copyright © David Owen and David Pemberton 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian
Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin
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Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

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ISBN 978 1 74237 630 1

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Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

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For Leisha, Hilton and Larry
D.O.

For Rosemary, my partner in love, life and field biology
D.P.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Beelzebub's pup: a reappraisal of the Tasmanian devil

2 Evolution and extinction

3 Relationships in the wild

4 ‘Made for travelling rough': devil ecology

5 Devils and Europeans, 1803–1933

6 In the matter of the Society and the Board

7 From Antichrist to ambassador

8 In captivity

9 ‘The spinning animal from Tasmania'

10 Owning the devil: Tasmania and Warner Bros.

11 Devil Facial Tumour Disease

Notes

Select bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many organisations and individuals have been of assistance to us in our work on this book, through permission to reproduce words or images and through personal communications.

In particular, and as will be seen throughout the book, Nick Mooney, Tasmanian government wildlife biologist and a longtime advocate of protecting the island's fauna and unique environment, holds a special place in the story of the Tasmanian devil.

Likewise, zoologist and academic Dr Eric Guiler, devoted himself for over fifty years to championing the cause of Tasmania's wildlife, and his pioneering research into the Tasmanian devil remains of seminal importance.

Dr Menna Jones and Androo Kelly are two other Tasmanians who, in contrasting ways, continue to work closely with the Tasmanian devil and whose insights into its behaviour and ecology have significantly increased our understanding of this rare marsupial carnivore.

The tragedy of Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) threatens the species, challenging its survival. A great variety of individuals, whether working in laboratories or in the field, have spent countless hours in efforts to combat this threat. As joint authors of the Tasmanian devil story we have been acutely conscious of its perilous position, and this has made us all the more aware of the importance of those striving to help it. Their efforts cannot be underestimated, nor should they be undervalued. Thanks in particular in the preparation of this book are extended to Clare Hawkins, Billie Lazenby and Jason Wiersma.

Special thanks to Kathryn Medlock for her advice on the manuscript, to Christo Baars for permission to use his stunning devil images, and to Simon Bevilacqua for his enduring persistence in tracking the devil story.

We also wish to acknowledge and thank: Ian Bowring, Karen Gee, Catherine Taylor, Emma Cotter, Allen & Unwin; Bill Bleathman, Brian Looker, Belinda Bauer, Debbie Robertson, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery; Garry Bailey, Editor,
The
Mercury
; Steven M. Fogelson, Senior Attorney, Warner Bros. Consumer Products Inc.; Patrick Medway, National President, Wildlife Preservation Society of Australia; Grant Williams, Rokeby Primary School; Toren Virgis, Bonorong Wildlife Park; Elaine Kirchner, Fort Wayne Children's Zoo; Angela Anderson, Tasmanian Devil Park; Tony Marshall, Margaret Harman, State Library of Tasmania; Garth Wigston, Wigston's Lures; Judy K. Long, The Wolverine Foundation; Cheryl Vogt, Wilderness Safaris; Daniel J. Cox, Natural Exposures Inc.; Rob Giason, Tourism Tasmania; Ingrid Albion; Mike Archer; Bill Brown; Max Cameron; Donna Coleman; Rodney Croome; George Davis; Tim Dub; Rosemary Gales; Brian George; Lionel Grey; Lynda Guy; Lois Hall; Maureen Johnstone; Geoff King; Brendan McCrossen; Kate Mooney; Mike Myers; Jenny Nurse; Richard Perry; David Randall; Genene Randell; Steve Randell; Debbie Sadler; Alan Scott; Garry Sutton; John Teasdale; Russell Wheeldon; John R. Wilson; Stephen Wroe; Dave Watts; Janet Weaving.

DO and DP

  
INTRODUCTION

These days, I live on a small private nature reserve in the Tasmanian highlands, where a whole family of wicked-looking though loveable black beasts regularly invite themselves to feast at my tent, sometimes around midday with the sun shining through their red ears, often in the dead of night, dressed as they are for darkness and cocktails . . . Some say Tassie devils are innately convicts, thieves and criminals, but I prefer to think they are nature's creatures of fortune, as boisterous and inquisitive as children, who enjoy each other's company, laugh at their own jokes, and share what they find. For what else would they have done with those five missing shoes, champagne bottle, and two billiard balls?

J
OHN
R. W
ILSON
, Q
UOIBA

Tasmanian Devil: A unique and threatened animal
is the story of a wild animal, the world's largest living marsupial carnivore, about which we have limited understanding. Now there is a tragic possibility that it may become extinct in the wild, or extinct altogether, before we know much more. Sadder still, human activity may be behind the mysterious disease that has decimated the species in the only place in the world where it still exists, the island of Tasmania. Just a few short years ago it was unthinkable that the robust and protected Tasmanian devil might be about to follow in the doom-laden footsteps of its larger relative, the thylacine—a predator that was in large measure rendered extinct by government-sanctioned persecution. This, the first comprehensive book on the Tasmanian devil, is the vibrant, sometimes horrifying, but remarkable story of an iconic marsupial mammal and the great variety of people who have loved, loathed and misunderstood it for centuries.

Marrawah is a coastal township in the far northwest of Tasmania. Late in the twentieth century a fifth-generation Marrawah farmer, Geoff King, elected to cease using his 830-acre property for cattle farming. Instead, he turned it into a wildlife sanctuary, specifically to protect the Tasmanian devil. Much of ‘King's Run' fronts wild, rocky coastline. A slow, bumpy ride through scrub takes visitors to his ‘devil restaurant': a tiny old white wooden shack close to the surf and protected by extraordinary slabs of multi-hued granite. The area is of strong Aboriginal significance and has an ethereal, otherworld quality about it.

Geoff King and his visitors chat, eat and drink in the crude but comfortable little one-room shack. Outside, near the window, a spotlit wallaby carcass is staked to the ground. A microphone will alert the guests to arriving devils—and they generally turn up, long after dark, hence the pleasure of socialising while waiting, briefly remote from civilisation. As often as not, it will be raining and blowing. The magnified crunching of the devils, and their black-white, sharp but transient interactions with one another, half in and half out of manmade light as they go about their complex feeding business, is vivid and magical, like the sacred area itself, with wind and pounding surf as constant background.