In the late 1960s years we saw very few Tasmanian devils at the shack but then their population increased greatly . . . We were frequently accosted as we went out to the toilet. The children used to be quite scared of them and would come running back inside for an adult to accompany them . . . The devils became bolder and would remove items from the back porch: on one occasion they took a box of six-inch nails and we followed the trail of nails down to the beach where they had dumped the box.
JENNY NURSE, HOWRAH
In the early 1960s there weren’t many Jack Bauers, or Eric Guilers. It took the stubbornness and certainty of their kind to recast the Tasmanian devil, as Mary Roberts had half a century earlier, as an animal quite unlike the popular perception of it. At Granville Harbour Guiler and his colleagues worked in tough conditions, camping in rough terrain for up to ten days, setting baited, drop-door wire cage traps in rainforest, gullies, cleared farm paddocks, coastal scrub and dune formations. The rainy, soggy, windy, cold locality had been chosen for its inaccessibility and lack of human activity; just three people lived at the harbour, with the nearest township, Zeehan, a day’s drive away on a rough track.
Among Guiler’s findings over the ten years of the survey: devils have a home range but do not defend territory; they use well-defined tracks and livestock trails; they travel extensively in search of food; despite the adults being solitary, they may develop some form of social intercourse at a ‘general mixing area’;1 few live beyond six years; a population may fluctuate rapidly and substantially, linked to both high juvenile mortality rates and the degree of immigration of animals into an area; devils in the west are smaller than elsewhere.
A sharp, sustained increase in numbers was recorded in the latter years of the survey, beginning ‘very substantially’ in 1973, with the boosted population showing ‘a good balance between the old, mature, and juvenile weight groups’.2 That balance had disappeared by 1975, and many animals, when captured in 1975, weighed less. Guiler speculated that this was due to a food shortage, although ‘there was no field evidence that this was in fact so’.3 An increased population in one area would surely mean less food for all, and animals would soon lose condition, negatively affecting reproduction ability—a possible mechanism for self-correcting population imbalances.
Guiler had earlier concluded that the rising devil population might have peaked by 1969. Devil numbers and population dynamics are still not understood, despite decades of study. This lack of knowledge is hindering efforts to second- guess and possibly contain the disease that has spread across the island.
Anecdotal population evidence, in the form of newspaper accounts, is one source of information, but it is patchy, inconclusive, and open to interpretation.
In the winter of 1966, possum hunters across a small area of the midlands reported great increases in devils robbing their snares. This was put down to a rise in their numbers. The devils ‘appeared to be very ravenous, according to hunters’.4
That behaviour suggests either a lack of food, or more vigorous competition through an increased devil population, a natural winter result of weaned juveniles. To muddy the picture further, possums were apparently more plentiful than usual in the eastern area but scarce in the western area. What, then, caused an apparently isolated outbreak of atypical behaviour?
In 1972 the same area appeared to be afflicted again, though this time farmers were the victims. ‘It is believed that the animals have increased so much in the timbered country that they are venturing into the open lowlands in search of food. Some farmers are becoming concerned that they could eventually attack stock.’5 ‘Evidence’ for this included the discovery of a devil hiding behind a deep-freeze unit in a garage in Oatlands.
A dramatic report then declared:
Devils loom as menace . . . Tasmanian devils had recently attacked chained farm dogs, a spokesman for the Tasmanian Farmers, Stockowners and Orchardists’ Association [TFSOA] claimed yesterday. They had savaged domestic animals and had been found inside at least two farm houses. ‘The build-up in the population of this dangerous pest is alarming’, the president of the TFSOA (Mr R. J. Downie) said. ‘We are getting reports which strongly suggest a population explosion among devils. They are being reported from places where previously devils were unknown, or at least, not a problem. They are readily attacking stock, prowling around and in farm buildings, and fighting with chained farm dogs,’ Mr Downie said.6
The president went on to say that his association recognised the role of native fauna and would never advocate their mass destruction; but there is little doubt that his awareness of the devil being something of its own advocate—a threat while a boon— came from Dr Guiler, who had not long before warned farmers that, ‘a permit [to destroy devils] is the last line of defence. It is a recognition of failure to keep pastures clean and free from dead animals. A buildup of devils to plague proportions can only occur if food is available. In this respect the devil takes advantage of man’s untidy habits’.7
The difficulty with such accounts is in knowing what to believe. An island-wide increase would surely have been commented on elsewhere. Yet what conditions might create a purely ‘local’ increase? Food supply—including dead and vulnerable sheep and cows—plays a part.
For fifteen years no more was heard of the devil as a problem, but in 1987 another population surge made it newsworthy again. Launceston’s daily newspaper the Examiner kicked off:
Farmers down Cranbrook way are having a devil of a time, and would like the power to legally do something about it. The small east coast district is beset with Tasmanian devils, but as a wholly protected animal the ferocious little marsupials can maraud hen houses with the full protection of the law . . . A farmer’s first concern is for his stock, so when someone or something is crunching his critters his instinct is to shoot first and ask questions afterwards . . . Although local folk agreed that an unusually and annoyingly large number of devils had been roaming the district lately, most thought the word ‘plague’ was a bit too strong. ‘They’re a pest, not a plague’, said Jim Amos, of Cranbrook House, who has lived and farmed there all his 70-odd years. A story in yesterday’s Melbourne Sun told how ‘a plague of voracious Tasmanian devils is causing havoc on the east coast’ . . . Merino stud farmer Geoff Lyne claimed to have lost 75 ducks and 50 hens to the little devils in the last few months, [they] had attacked ewes during lambing and savaged a $2000 ram as it lay trapped in an irrigation ditch . . . Most farmers and townsfolk had lost chooks to the mean marsupials, but Mr Amos said that devil numbers had been up for 15 years, and he had even had them living under his house. ‘They’re like possums now—they’re dead on the road all the way to Swansea.’ Mrs Ethel Poole, 72, of Cranbrook, said that devils had carried off all but two of her chooks. ‘They’re thick as fleas around here, and they’re sly things—they left me with two old boilers,’ she laughed.8
In June 1987 the rural Tasmanian Country took a less lighthearted view:
Farmers in Tasmania’s North-East are concerned about large numbers of Tasmanian devils in the area. While the devils are causing problems with livestock, the farmers are at a loss to know what steps can be taken about what they consider to be plague proportions of the wholly protected native animals . . . Waterhouse farmers, Lindsay and Lois Hall, say they can barely set foot outside their back door without running into devils. Mrs Hall said that 25 years ago she would see ‘the odd one’. However, she said, on their cattle grazing property, large numbers were now seen during the daytime and were creating havoc. Mrs Hall said the Tasmanian devils took their chickens and ducks and chewed the ears and tails off newborn calves if they were too slow to stand up. She said the devils had also been known to take a litter of pups.
Mrs Hall said she believed the problem started when, about six years ago, large numbers of Tasmanian devils were brought to the area from Cape Portland where they were becoming a nuisance. Since then they had bred up to plague proportions. Mrs Hall believes because there were so many Tasmanian devils in the area there was a shortage of food and the animals were in poor condition and mangy. ‘I wouldn’t like to see them go because they are a unique animal,’ she said.9
Mrs Hall’s sympathy for the devil was admirable, given the dislike of it held by many in rural industries. But a few others were beginning to see a different value in the animal. A metamorphosis, dollar-inspired though it may have been, had begun back in the mid-seventies when a prominent businessman and member of the then Tasmanian Tourist Authority suggested that the devil be used to attract tourists. A sixteen-week global study trip had shown him:
The official logo of the Tasmania Parks & Wildlife Service. (Used with permission of and © the Tasmania Parks & Wildlife Service)
Tasmania is almost unheard of throughout the world, and those who know of our State, know it only because of its connection with the Tasmanian devil . . . Now is the time for us to sell, sell, sell our natural product through our tourist industry . . . Many parts of the world are suffering from the thoughtlessness that has accompanied industrial expansion, and we must do everything we can to preserve our unspoiled environment.10
Luring tourists to a place for its wildlife is understandable. Taking an animal out of its natural habitat to attract tourists to that place is a different matter. So it was that in 1981 the Tasmanian government proposed to use a devil as a central feature of a tourism task force visiting New Zealand. The animal would then be donated to a university for scientific study. It’s hard to imagine a lone devil in a cage enticing anyone to visit its homeland, and the Australian government in any event refused an export license. When this failed, donation became the next option, and attention turned to Japan.
The State government found a way around the issue, donating four devils to Osaka Zoo in 1984. According to the official ministerial news release, they were being given
to the Japanese people . . . The gift of the devils will help to cement the bonds which are being developed between Tasmania and Japan . . . The devils will be unusual but important ambassadors for our State . . . The Japanese people were fascinated by the devils, and their interest in the animals would focus attention on Tasmania. The Japanese press had already given extensive coverage to the pending arrival of the animals, describing them as the ‘strangest of all animals’ and ‘with strong teeth, even to bend iron stick’ . . . Osaka Zoo officials had prepared a special home for the devils, and plans also were being made for an official receiving ceremony.11
A few years later three more devils, the youthful Mo, Mavis and Mary, were presented to the Sapporo Maruyama Zoo in Japan’s Hokkaido state. The Tasmanian official accompanying them on the flight, Ray Groom, the Minister for Forests, Mines and Sea Fisheries, expressed the hope that they would breed in captivity, again ‘putting Tassie in the spotlight’.12 Needless to say, they didn’t breed, but as a marketing ploy it worked; the devil was to become as significant as the koala as an iconic Australian image.
This new-found respect for the animal in its home state was not before time. While devils continued to be regarded as pests in some agricultural areas, public sensitivity to its status rebounded on the university, which since the time of Flynn had been associated with research for its protection. A saga which made international news in 1985 started with a front-page report in The Mercury headlined ‘Uni’s Devilish Experiments Anger Animal Libbers’:
Animal Liberationists have warned they will picket and possibly invade a University of Tasmania seminar in Hobart tomorrow to protest against experimentation on and slaughtering of at least 11 Tasmanian devils. The seminar, in the university’s zoology department, has been arranged for the presentation of reports on research to ascertain the temperature regulation of Tasmanian devils’ brains.
The experiments were by an honours student working on his Bachelor of Science honours thesis. A spokesman for the Tasmanian chapter of Animal Liberation, Mrs Pam Clarke, yesterday said the experiments had been futile. Several animals which had had sensitive temperature recording instruments called thermocouples implanted in their brains had been found to be useless for the experiments because the thermocouples had corroded. ‘The devils, a part of our unique wild fauna, have been through a horrendous series of experiments,’ she said. ‘We were horrified to read that many of them died during the implantation operations and also during other experiments,’ she said.
The survivors had been forced into prolonged exercise on an enclosed treadmill. An electric shock grid had been put at the rear of the treadmill ‘to encourage the animals to continue running’, but this was discontinued because ‘it caused unnatural responses and also affected the chart recorder’.
Mrs Clarke said the distressed devils had suffered substantial injuries to their tails and paws when caught between the treadmill and the boundary wall. Animal Liberation also has claimed that an unspecified number of native cats and possums have been slaughtered in university-sanctioned experiments. ‘Animal Liberation calls on the university to open its doors on the secrecy surrounding animal experimentation and appoint a member of an animal welfare organisation to its animal ethics committee,’ Mrs Clarke said.
The head of the pathology department in the university’s medical faculty, Prof Konrad Muller, yesterday defended the experiments on the grounds that the research was important. A similar appraisal of another animal’s brain, for instance a rabbit’s, would not have given the desired results. The 11 Tasmanian devils had been ordered by Dr S. C. Nicol, of the university’s physiology department, with the permission of the State National Parks and Wildlife Service. Of the 11, six had been killed and their brains immediately examined. The other five had been used in a series of tests to determine the regulation of their brain temperatures.13
These allegations were not met with silence. The story continued on the front page of the next day’s paper:
A senior lecturer at the University of Tasmania yesterday lashed out at what he called ignorant and ill-informed criticism of experiments . . . they had considerable scientific merit and had resulted in the discovery of a blood cell which controlled the temperature of the marsupial’s brain. ‘The experiments have a number of implications to the evolution of marsupials and the evolution of mechanisms which keep body temperature constant in all mammals, and for understanding the devil’s way of life,’ Dr Nicol [sic] said . . . He said the results had been enthusiastically received by the Australian Journal of Zoology and another Australian university which was doing similar experiments . . . The experiments were part of a thesis by an honours student for his bachelor of science degree. Dr Nicol said the student was not Australian, and poor expression had made the experiments appear worse than they really were . . . Dr Nicol said that [the thermocouples] had broken in their rubber casing, and were useless for the experiment, but had not caused the animals any extra discomfort. He also dismissed claims that devils had been forced to run for unnatural periods of time on a treadmill. ‘The treadmill experiments involved only two animals which ran at 7 kmh . . . In the wild the animals keep this sort of speed up for hours.’14
A ministerial statement defended the university, which was not surprising given that the government had issued the experiment permits in the first place. The minister curiously observed that devils were in abundance, as if that overrode questions of ethical treatment of individual animals. The issue duly blew over.
Devils weren’t long out of the news, however. Tasmanians awoke one morning in July 1988 to a front-page horror headline: ‘Devil’s Disease—State’s Tough Little Ambassador Threatens Livestock’.15
The discovery of the deadly animal parasite Trichinella spiralis for the first time in Australia—in devils—had potentially disastrous national ramifications. Not only might it migrate to livestock (pigs are the main host) or to humans (causing eye and heart damage), but both Tasmania’s and the country’s disease-free livestock status might also be seriously jeopardised. The infected devils all came from an area near iconic, isolated Cradle Mountain. How could a foreign parasite make its way there? Tourists? It was speculated that a devil or devils must have eaten an infected product, most likely illegally imported salami, because curing and smoking meat doesn’t kill the worm.
Nick Mooney has for many years played a key role in the management and research of Tasmania’s wildlife. (Kate Mooney)
Fortunately, the threat proved to be an unintentional beat-up. Sampling outside the Cradle Mountain area by Nick Mooney revealed the worm to be naturally present in about 30 per cent of the devil population. Government veterinary pathologist Dr David Obendorf confirmed that no crossover risk existed. ‘Wherever you find Tasmanian devils you find the parasite but that’s no reason for killing Tasmanian devils.’16 It was a strange way to discover more about the tough little ambassador.
In the space of twelve months, in 1991 and 1992 three very different accounts of the devil were published by the world’s foremost devil experts. The University of Tasmania conferred David Pemberton’s doctoral thesis, ‘Social organisation and behaviour of the Tasmanian devil, Sarcophilus harrisii’; Eric Guiler published his 28-page The Tasmanian Devil, which covers a year in the life cycle of the animal; and Nick Mooney’s ‘The Devil You Know’ appeared in the Winter 1992 edition of Leatherwood: Tasmania’s Journal of Discovery. Despite its brevity Mooney’s article is one of the first genuinely informed accounts of the animal written for the general public. Mooney had been studying and interacting with devils for years; the importance of ‘The Devil You Know’ is its wealth of previously unpublished and logical assumptions about the animal, including:
• The demise of the thylacine probably resulted in diminished competition for, and predation on, devils. It is also reasonable to suppose that the niche of devils then expanded as it has for hyaenas as the number of lions diminished in Africa. I wonder if devils now may be of a larger range size and more predacious than before, gradually evolving to soak up the empty (or good as empty) thylacine niche.
• It is a pity that the first exotic eutherians our marsupials had to deal with were probably the very cream of that group as far as survival goes: humans, dogs, foxes, cats and rodents. For a long time this ‘unfair’ competition has clouded the true success of marsupialism.
• Small devils have a variety of natural competitors and predators including (previously) thylacine, people, other devils, quolls and large birds of prey. Eagles and people are probably two of the main reasons devils and many other Australian animals are nocturnal, directly to avoid predation and indirectly to minimise competition.
• Unusual items I have found in devil scats include: part of a woollen sock; a wallaby foot complete with snare; part of a dog or cat collar; 27 whole echidna quills; stock ear tags and rubber lamb ‘docking’ rings; head of a tiger snake; aluminium foil, plastic and Styrofoam; ring off a bird’s leg; half a pencil; leather jacket (fish) spine; boobook owl foot; cigarette butt; part of a ‘steelo’ pot scraper. I have also had part of a leather boot and the knee of a pair of fat-stained jeans eaten after being left outside a tent (not with me in them).
• I have made some observations of sheep and lamb–devil interactions using military style ‘starlight scopes’. Large devils will check out a flock by sniffing from 10–15 m. The sheep will group and face the devil, stamping their feet as their usual threat. If the sheep are all healthy and alert and no carrion or afterbirth is available the devil(s) quickly move on. Sick or injured stock attract much more attention. Healthy sheep without lambs usually ignore devils.
The devil’s varied and indiscriminate diet results in disproportionately large scats. (Courtesy Nick Mooney)
• Although devils use their extraordinary strength to escape traps they rarely use it to enter places to eat.
• The mechanism of foraging seems to be almost ceaseless patrolling . . . I have followed individual devils for more than 11 km along beaches and through the snow before losing their tracks.
• Human interference can be important, either by providing extra food or extra mortality, especially with illegal poisoning. Often, as in some rural areas, it is a bit of both resulting in unusually high population turnover.17
Like the earlier articles by Mary Roberts and Jack Bauer, Mooney’s field observations cut right through much of the dogma that continued to be associated with the devil.