Effort To Protect Tasmanian Devils Devastates Island's Penguin Population (bbc.com) 52
Slashdot reader Thelasko quotes the BBC:
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.
A small number of devils were shipped to Maria Island east of Tasmania, Australia, in 2012. The move aimed to protect the mammals from a deadly facial cancer that had driven them towards extinction. The devils have recovered since, but the island project has come at a cost... Citing a government survey, BirdLife Tasmania said a population of little penguins that numbered 3,000 breeding pairs in 2012 had disappeared from the island.
"Losing 3,000 pairs of penguins from an island that is a national park that should be a refuge for this species basically is a major blow," said Dr Eric Woehler, a researcher for the group.
A small number of devils were shipped to Maria Island east of Tasmania, Australia, in 2012. The move aimed to protect the mammals from a deadly facial cancer that had driven them towards extinction. The devils have recovered since, but the island project has come at a cost... Citing a government survey, BirdLife Tasmania said a population of little penguins that numbered 3,000 breeding pairs in 2012 had disappeared from the island.
"Losing 3,000 pairs of penguins from an island that is a national park that should be a refuge for this species basically is a major blow," said Dr Eric Woehler, a researcher for the group.
Taz-the killer. (Score:2)
Send the bill to Warner Brothers.
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The people who did this, never watched the Simpsons.
They also never studied history with biology. I'm sure they were experts. Another affirmative action person.
I would think ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'd argue that Godzilla will become a reality in the future, all thanks to Australian scientists, and all in the name of "conservation"
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Re:I would think ... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, that was my first thought too. I read TFA (sorry) and find that they were not unaware.
"In 2011, a report by the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment suggested the introduction of devils would have "a negative impact on little penguin and shearwater colonies on Maria Island"."
It appears that they did a risk/benefit analysis relating to the goal of bringing devils back from the edge of extinction.
Final score: Mammals 2, Avians 0
Yay team Mammal, I guess.
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Now the question is: will, they survive? And if so in what numbers and how long.
Looks like a classic hunter - prey computer game simulation, except: it is not a simulation.
https://gama-platform.github.i... [github.io]
Re:I would think ... (Score:5, Informative)
Little Penguins [wikipedia.org] are not endangered and have a conservation status of "least concern".
They breed along the entire southern coast of Australia as well as New Zealand and the Chatham Islands.
The devils are much more threatened and have few other safe refuges.
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Pretty sure he was talking about the Devils seeing as they cleared out most of the prey. Could easily have a nasty population collapse soon depending on the availability of food.
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Exactly :P
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If there are too many, the obvious solution is to trap the excess and use them to repopulate areas where the devils have died out. Perhaps even reintroducing them to the mainland, where dingoes wiped them out 5,000 years ago.
They are pretty stupid, so easy to trap using some rotten chicken meat as bait.
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Nothing some reckless driving won't take care of
https://youtu.be/rm3hd1pxHME?t... [youtu.be]
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It was predicted the introduction of the carnivorous marsupials would have “a negative impact on little penguin and shearwater colonies on Maria Island through devil predation,” however since the penguins are not endangered this was judged to be an acceptable tradeoff to save a species they believed was on the brink of extinction.
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So the whole "it backfired" outcry is being made by people with a different set of priorities than the ones in charge of saving the Tasmanian Devils.
Re: I would think ... (Score:2)
They only care if it affects agriculture.
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They used to live on the Australian mainland too, but were eliminated there by human activity. So a large part of their population crash is due to humans being dicks.
Re:How is this not meddling again? (Score:4, Interesting)
but were eliminated there by human activity.
Actually, they weren't. Humans arrived in Australia over 40,000 years ago. The devils continued to thrive on the mainland for the next 30,000 years.
Then dogs were brought to Australia by Indonesian traders. They became feral and evolved into dingoes. It was the dingo that caused the demise of the devils and thylacines on the mainland.
Dingoes never crossed the Tasman Strait, so devils and thylacines continued to live in Tasmania despite people being there.
due to humans being dicks.
It was dingoes. And the Australian term for a dick is a "donger'. So the problem was dingo dongers.
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And who brought the invasive species? Humans. I never said it was the first humans to arrive that did the damage.
Re: How is this not meddling again? (Score:2)
Need Bugs Bunny to protect the Pengu-wins (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki4uQV7XiRQ
It's really no surprise as Pengu-wins is basically a chicken.
dat's mother nature for ya (Score:5, Interesting)
Mother nature: love her if you want, and you can respect her for getting results, but if you don't fear her you're an idiot. Very much an "old biblical angry god" sort of thing.
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The point is "nature ain't pretty". Fascinating, but not pretty to watch in action.
Did nobody expect this? (Score:2)
Releasing a predator on an island ....did someone consider that this predator might eat animals?
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Their next solution is to release snakes, on planes.
Re: Did nobody expect this? (Score:2)
And guess which one tasted so much like chicken?
Nature (Score:2)
A small number of devils were shipped to Maria Island east of Tasmania, Australia, in 2012. The move aimed to protect the mammals from a deadly facial cancer that had driven them towards extinction. The devils have recovered since, but the island project has come at a cost... Citing a government survey, BirdLife Tasmania said a population of little penguins that numbered 3,000 breeding pairs in 2012 had disappeared from the island.
I guess sometimes you just have to let nature take its course
Re: Nature (Score:2)
And in this case, the little penguins were the main course.
It's an island (Score:2)
They should have put a bunch of rabbits or other prey on the island if they didn't want the penguins eaten.
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Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Predators eat prey. Rabbits AND Penguins are prey. The Tasmanian Devil's, and most other predators, wouldn't make the distinction between the Rabbits and Penguins. They would preferentially hunt the easier of the two, which in this case would have been the Penguins. Then the Devils would have gone after the Rabbits.
Rabbits are actually better adapted to dealing with land based predators than the Penguins are and would be harder to catch. That is the environment
Put predators next to food (Score:3)
were they ever on that island? (Score:1)
Given the proximity of Maria island I was expecting that the devils had already been on that island, had been hunted out, or otherwise gone extinct, and this was really a reintroduction.
The article is not clear on that point, but if they had never been there in the first place, then putting them there was a bad idea.
Apparently, at that time, the choice was to screw up the island's ecosystem or watch the devils go extinct.
I don't envy those who had to make that call.
that was so forseable (Score:2)
How often did the same thing happen when rats got introduced on tropic islands?
Only one times, or was it actually two times? (*facepalm*)
Worth it. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a bit conflicted by this. I worked on a project, oh 5-6 years ago in west australia doing penguine monitoring on the same species of penguin, "little penguins" (aka "fairy penguins", a name I prefer, but not its actual real name) and yeah these guys are important. But an island in trasmania isn't the end of the road. There are a lot of other populations of these guys around.
Meanwhile tassie devils are genuinely facing extinction from the infectious cancer (the very thought of an infectious cancer is skin crawling to me). Its a blow to lose those penguins, but frankly saving the devils is much more inportant. They are a genyuinely unique and notable critter.
One step back, two steps forward.
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Opinion stated as fact.
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The majority of Tasmanians agree, given the effort we're putting into it, so it is essentially a fact; the birds aren't at risk, but we need nature's little garbage trucks.
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Damn straight its a fact. Little penguins are not endangered. Our study around 2011 found there was maybe around 600,000 little penguins. From a conservation perspective thats a very solid population. Penguins are nowhere near the top of the food chain so the elasticity in population. will not have the same cascade effects as knocking out, say, the seals, or for that matter the krill.
Tasmanian Devils are down to around 20K across an area the size of west virginia. They are the only to
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If it is natural, nature should take it's course. We cause it, stop doing it. Natural event, natural event. I same sure those fairy penguins were not happy to be fed, well brutally killed and torn apart. They act falls upon those who brought the animals to the island and not the animals. Really quite a nasty thing to do, excuse it anyway you want, they fed a entire colony of Fairy Penguins to Tasmanian Devils, sounds so evil and yeah, pretty nasty.
ever thought where the meat people eat comes from? (Score:2)
If it is natural, nature should take it's course. We cause it, stop doing it. Natural event, natural event. I same sure those fairy penguins were not happy to be fed, well brutally killed and torn apart. They act falls upon those who brought the animals to the island and not the animals. Really quite a nasty thing to do, excuse it anyway you want, they fed a entire colony of Fairy Penguins to Tasmanian Devils, sounds so evil and yeah, pretty nasty.
You'll never guess where the meat people eat comes from...
Just goes to show really smart people (Score:2)