PERTH: They are our most feisty four-legged icon, fighting back from the brink of extinction and earning a badass reputation in cartoons and comic strips.
Researchers now think the Tasmanian devil could be the solution to Australia’s feral cat and fox problem.
In an new study, ecologists from the University of NSW said reintroducing devils to mainland forests for the first time in 3000 years would stop the spread of foreign predators, which prey on endangered native species, such as the bilby and bandicoot.
So devastating have feral cats been on native fauna that the federal government has vowed to kill 2 million of them in the next five years.
Study co-author Associate Professor Mike Letnic said evidence suggested Tasmanian devils couldn’t coexist with dingoes, but in areas where dingoes had disappeared, the reintroduced devil would outrank cats and foxes as top predator.
“Foxes have been introduced to Tasmania several times and they’ve never taken hold, and as Tasmania is not particularly different from the mainland, the best explanation as to why foxes haven’t been able to thrive in Tasmania is the Tasmanian devil,” he told news.com.au.
“What we envision is a big trial in a huge fenced area (in Australia’s southeast) where you could see how the devils go, see how they go pitted against foxes and cats, and if that is a success, then perhaps release them into the wider landscape.
