Thursday, October 01, 2015

Good News 1 on an Endangered Species

The Tasmanian Devil is very endangered, but I have good news (hopefully).  The species was originally threatened, and wiped out of many places, by man's destruction of habitat.
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Actually the should be call the Tasmanian Surly Marsupials.
But, more recently, there has been a plague of cancer in the mouth that is spread virally.  That is, from one Tasmanian Devil to the next.  It has wiped out approximately 90% of the species.  Moving it from threatened to close to extinction.
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Well a concerted effort was made to round up these creatures - not nearly as cute as Taz from the cartoons - and do captive breeding, like the California Condor.  Additionally a vaccine was developed to try to prevent this cancer from spreading to these animals.
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They have just release 20 back into the wild where there are other Tasmania Devils, to see if there immunity from the cancer works as well in the wild as in captivity.
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It is a nice story - with a San Diego Zoo supporting role. link