Visiting the Devils in Tasmania

Malaga and his warm handler
Petting Malaga

Close-up of Malaga

One of the highlights of Saturday in Tasmania was touring the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Facility at Cradle Mountain. It is a small center, open just a year now, with a space for educating the public about Tasmanian Devils and outdoor habitats where seven of them actually live. We learned it is an "insurance population", meaning that they want to preserve and hopefully increase the number of healthy animals in the area. Devils are in danger of extinction in Tasmania because of a facial tumor disease which has rapidly spread (by facial contact) and has reduced the population in half over the past ten years. They have a field monitoring program there, and basically offer talks and tours to support the care of the Devils and the conservation research they're doing.

As you can see, we got to pet a Tasmanian Devil named Malaga, a two year old male. It was an experience I never expected to have. He was held by the worker for quite some time to keep him calm before she brought him over to us. He liked the warmth of being indoors and up against her and stayed fairly still. He was very soft but we could only touch his back so he wouldn't freak out and bite. We had to keep our movements slow and our voices lowered. They have fairly poor eyesight, but a great sense of smell. Follow this link to see the other Devils living at the center. Parks and Wildlife offers good basic info about them here, including an audio clip of what they sound like. Or maybe you'd prefer the animated version.