Courting the Devil, Damning the Penguins

Photograph: Ian Waldie/Getty Images

"All of the colonies of penguins once nesting around the Maria Island foreshore are gone because of the [Tasmanian] devils."

"Parks, and wildlife rangers, went out 18 months back  and couldn't find a single pengiun breeding in any of the previously known penguin colonies on the island."

"So, the devils have wiped out the penguins. It's 100 percent. The shearwaters have also been hammered."

Eric Woehler, BirdLife Tasmania convener

"...Because of their larger size and ability to dig, devils had greater impacts on nesting shearwaters than either cats or possums [which are native to the island]."

2020 BirdLife Tasmania study

A project to preserve endangered Tasmanian devils on a small island has backfired after the predators killed seabirds in large numbers, a conservation group says.   BBC

Wildlife experts and biologists have the best intentions when they set out to 'correct' nature. To solve problems some envision importing alien species to aid and assist struggling or threatened indigenous species of vegetation or wildlife, and all too often the imports, settling into their new environments find it so to their liking they run rampant and end up threatening the existence of native species either by monopolizing their territory or their food sources or by consuming the native species to extinction.

This appears to be what has occurred when the Australian island of Maria off Tasmania became the recipient of relocated Tasmanian devils whose existence was threatened by a dread cancer, contagiously infecting animal herds. It was decided that as an experiment in survival, 28 of the devils deemed healthy and uninfected were to be settled on Maria Island. The island had no devil population prior to the relocation.

 

Little penguins – the species has been eliminated from Australia’s Maria Island by introduced Tasmanian devils. Photograph: Eric Woehler

 

In the annals of 'what could go wrong?' another classic example ensued. While relocating the original 28 as 'insurance' that the species suffering from facial tumour disease afflicting the animals throughout the state, the purpose was to shield the species against extinction. The devils increased to number 200 in time and they hunted a species of little penguins whose home was the 44 square mile island. Tasmanian devils are known for their voracious appetite, and the penguins were their target.

The little penguins numbered 3,000 breeding pairs and now they are no longer to be seen on the island. Equally troubling, the number of short-tailed shearwaters also served as dinner for the devils and they too have been 'eliminated', according to a paper published in the journal Biological Conservation. Eric Woehler of BirdLife Tasmania spoke of the inevitability of the island's loss of bird life with the relocation of the devils as having been predictable.

The Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment had warned that local populations of little penguins and shearwater would have to be monitored. On the other hand it did not foresee that introducing the devils would be likely to result in local extinction of the birds. 

There are times when nature takes a hand in resolving issues it has initiated. A study that took place in 2020 found that the Tasmanian devils were becoming resistant to the deadly facial tumour disease passed by biting, with devastating consequences to the survival of the animals. Their numbers had declined by 80 percent in the past several decades. And now, it seems, they will be recovering their numbers through the natural survival expedient of resistance to the disease.

 

"[The Tasmanian government] continually monitors, evaluates and reviews the devil population."

"All effective conservation programs are adaptive and the Save the Tasmanian devil Program will continue to evolve in line with new knowledge in science and emerging priorities."

Tasmanian government statement