Chris Hemsworth helps with returning Tasmanian Devils into mainland Australia for first time in 3000 years

Actors Chris Hemsworth (a WildArk Ambassador) and Elsa Pataky helped Aussie Ark, in partnership with Global Wildlife Conservation and WildArk, recently release 11 Tasmanian devils into a 400-hectare (nearly 1,000 acres) wildlife sanctuary on Barrington Tops – the release marking the return of the Tasmanian devil into mainland Australia for the first time in 3,000 years.

Aussie Ark President, Tim Faulkner – who has been working with Tasmanian devils for more than 10 years with the goal of someday returning them to the wild - advised “in 100 years, we are going to be looking back at this day as the day that set in motion the ecological restoration of an entire country.

“Not only is this the reintroduction of one of Australia’s beloved animals, but of an animal that will engineer the entire environment around it, restoring and rebalancing our forest ecology after centuries of devastation from introduced foxes and cats and other invasive predators. Because of this reintroduction and all of the hard work leading up to it, someday we will see Tasmanian devils living throughout the great eastern forests as they did 3,000 years ago.”

Tasmanian devils vanished entirely from mainland Australia in large part because they were outcompeted by introduced dingoes, which hunt in packs. Dingoes never made it to Tasmania, but across the island state, a transmissible, painful and fatal disease called Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD)—the only known contagious cancer—decimated up to 90% of the wild population of Tasmanian devils. Just 25,000 devils are left in the wild of Tasmania today.

For the last decade, the Aussie Ark team has been building an insurance population of Tasmanian devils and learning everything they can about the animals, including about their reproductive physiology, behaviour, and ecological needs, all leading up to the reintroduction, which took place on 10th September and followed a successful assisted trial release with 15 Tasmanian devils. Twenty-six total devils now call the wild of mainland Australia home.

Aussie Ark selected the particular devils for reintroduction based on those most suitable to breed with one another without any inbreeding. The wild sanctuary will prevent the spread of disease, feral pests, noxious weeds and fire, which was catastrophic earlier this year for the country. The wild sanctuary will also keep cars out, ensuring that the devils learn not to associate cars with food—an association that could be deadly when they are more widely released.

Aussie Ark’s Tasmanian devil breeding program is the most successful conservation breeding facility for the endangered species on mainland Australia. Aussie Ark founded a Tasmanian devil breeding program in 2011 with 44 individuals. Today, it's home to more than 200, which is about 50% of the entire captive insurance population spread across mainland Australia. Over the years, more than 390 devils have been born and raised at Aussie Ark in a way that encourages and fosters their natural behaviours, helping ensure that they maintain all the skills they need to survive in the wild.

Global Wildlife Conservation President, Don Church noted “without Aussie Ark’s incredible work and perseverance over all of these years, the recent devil reintroduction would not have been possible and instead of looking forward to the recovery of the species, we would be watching the devil slip into extinction.

“This is an incredible example of how to rewild our planet, bringing back the natural systems to the benefit of all life on Earth.”

Not only does the reintroduction bode well for the recovery of the Tasmanian devil, but as native apex predators and the world’s largest carnivorous marsupials, the animals help control feral cats and foxes that threaten other endangered and endemic species. And because they are scavengers, they help keep their home clean and free of disease. The Tasmanian devil is one of seven cornerstone species critical to Australia’s ecosystem that Aussie Ark plans to reintroduce to the wild sanctuary in the coming years, all chosen to help restore the natural balance: Eastern quoll, Brush-tail rock wallabies, Rufous bettong, long-nosed potoroo, parma wallabies and southern brown bandicoots.

WildArk Co-Founder, Mark Hutchinson added “the re-introduction of devils to mainland Australia is a game-changer for conservation in this country, not only building a robust, genetically healthy population outside of Tasmania, but also paving the way for future introductions that the Aussie Ark team are already mapping out.

“Having partnered with Aussie Ark and GWC on the Koala Comeback Campaign after the bushfires this year, we’ve witnessed first-hand their commitment to ecological restoration in Eastern Australia and we couldn’t be prouder to now support the Devil Comeback. The groundwork is being laid for a broad, nationwide effort to rewild Australia and help our little critters find their niche again.”

This is the first of three planned reintroductions. In the next two years, Aussie Ark will do two additional releases of 20 devils each. The animals will be monitored through regular surveys, radio collars fit with transmitters, and camera traps. This will give the researchers the opportunity to learn about how the devils are faring, where they are claiming territory, what challenges they are facing, what they are eating, and whether they’re reproducing. All of this information will help to inform future releases, including in Tasmania and elsewhere on the mainland, to continually refine the process.

The devastating fires across Australia’s eastern seaboard earlier this year burned more than 72,000 square miles of forest and claimed the lives of at least 34 people and nearly 3 billion animals.

Faulkner highlighted that “the fires earlier this year were absolutely devastating and threatened to rob us of our hope. This is our response to that threat of despair: come what may, ultimately we will not be deterred in our efforts to put an end to extinction and to rewild Australia.”

Learn more about this historic achievement today, Monday 5th October at 7 p.m. ET, when UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador, actor, entrepreneur and Lonely Whale co-founder Adrian Grenier interviews Aussie Ark president Tim Faulkner live on Instagram. Grenier visited Aussie Ark in 2017 to help release 20 Tasmanian devils into 64-hectare semi-wild fenced sanctuaries. Tune in via Aussie Ark’s Instagram page or Grenier’s Instagram page.

More information at www.aussieark.org.au

More information on Global Wildlife Conservation at globalwildlife.org

More information on WildArk at www.wildark.org.

Image top: Actors Elsa Pataky and Chris Hemsworth (a WildArk Ambassador) helped with the release of Tasmanian devils; image centre of the Aussie Ark team; image above of Tasmanian Devils, Aussie Arkimages courtesy of Aussie Ark