HONG KONG: Is it time for Tasmanian devils to once again roam mainland Australia, after they went extinct there some 3,000 years ago? A new ecological impact study out of the University of New South Wales Australia (UNSW) suggests the answer may be “yes.”
Culls of the mainland’s dingo population in some areas, done to protect livestock, left a nature-abhorrent vacuum that was filled by red foxes and feral cats, which now cause trouble with native mammals and mess with the ecological balance wherever the dingoes once held sway.
To stop the fox and cat populations from spreading, then, the study wondered how the balance of nature might fare if indeed the devil returned. The latter creature was eradicated from the mainland three millennia ago, when it’s theorized they were hunted out of existence by dingoes.
“There are large areas where the dingo is gone and we need a predator who can suppress fox numbers,” explained the study’s lead author Daniel Hunter, in a press release. “The devil is the obvious answer,” said the PhD candidate from UNSW’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences.
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