Hi my name's Mel and welcome to Healesville Sanctuary's virtual Tasmanian Devil talk
So here at the sanctuary we've got nearly 45 Devils and we have a breeding
recovery program for them so we're part of the save the Tasmanian Devil Breeding
Program
Behind me you'll see Pippin she's got a few treats today so what you're looking
at is a carnivorous marsupial. These animals feed on mainly dead animals
which you can call 'carrion'. So Devils are not very fussy with their
food and they'll sniff out their food from kilometres away and they usually
meet other Devils at the same carcass site. They've got excellent jaw strength
and can crush and eat bones as well, so pretty amazing Devils - and do a great job
at cleaning up the landscape. Devils are what you call gorge feeders so Devils
can eat almost 40% of their body weight in food in one meal so that's about
equivalent of us eating maybe about 10 pizzas in half an hour, so pretty amazing
animals it's almost half of their bodyweight they can eat in one meal and
then they don't need to eat again for maybe two to five days afterwards.
But I did mention that Devils are marsupials so that means they also have
a pouch just like a kangaroo or a possum except their pouch is more
backwards-facing so more like a wombat. They spend a lot of time on the ground
and they do a lot of digging so they don't want dirt going into their pouches.
So devil babies or devil joeys are born very underdeveloped, very small, so a
pregnancy for a Devil is around about 21 days. So after that time a devil Joey is
born at about this size so about the size of a grain of rice, really tiny, and
a Devil gives birth to many more joeys then will ever survive. It's been
recorded even up to about 40 tiny little joeys but only four will ever survive
maximum because mum only has four teats in her pouch. So the little joey is
attached to mum's teats and there they suckle milk and develop into what looks
more like a Devil. So around about six months of age they're starting to come
in and out of the pouch, staying pretty close to mum and they'll start eating
little bits of meat as well by one year of age they're on their own and they
usually lead a more solitary life as an adult.
So when Devils vocalise there's a lot of high screaming calls, a lot of screeching,
snarls, they do sound a little bit scary and that's why they were named for
Tasmanian Devil. Also their ears are quite red,
particularly when they get angry. Devils, even though they sound very scary,
they are more shy than anything especially towards humans.
Sometimes you'll hear different vocalisations like a fainter 'ah' sound
and usually we'll hear but when I really anticipating food and they're getting
impatient, it's like a "hurry up"!
Devils in Tasmania are under great threats and some of you might have heard
about the Devil Facial Tumour Disease, so this has been in the Tasmanian
population for just over 20 years and it has really decimated the population in
Tasmania. So great lengths were made to actually start a breeding program just
over 10 years ago and we've been part of that breeding program ever since. It's
really important to make sure there's a healthy population of Tasmanian Devils
in captivity, to make sure this species does not go extinct. Zoos Victoria have
actually released some of our captive-bred Devils onto the Forestier Peninsula
and to Maria Island which are disease-free populations and they are
really healthy populations and doing really well.
So thanks for stopping by to learn a little bit about our Tasmanian Devils, we
do miss you here at here's the sanctuary and look forward to seeing you in the
future.