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Tasmanian devils were sitting ducks for deadly cancer http://apocadocs.com/s.pl?1309271777
Despite its ferocious nature, the Tasmanian devil is a creature faced with extinction, the victim of a gruesome facial tumour disease. Now the first genetic sequencing of these carnivorous marsupials has revealed that we had a hand in their decline: centuries of human interference left the devils stripped of genetic diversity and vulnerable to disease.
This meant that when the parasitic face cancer dubbed "Devil facial tumour disease" appeared in 1996 it rapidly spread through the entire population. As a result, the Tasmanian devil, or Sarcophilus harrisii, population has fallen over 60 per cent since 1996.
The disease is transmitted by physical contact, mostly biting during sex. It is almost always fatal and has spread across most of Tasmania....
Some studies estimate the marsupials could be wiped out within decades....
Humans had a heavy hand in this. First the devils were wiped out in mainland Australia by dingoes brought in by settlers, then those that remained in Tasmania were hunted as pests, causing several population crashes. As their genetic diversity was slashed, the devils were left vulnerable to disease.
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[Read more stories about:
anthropogenic change, ecosystem interrelationships, predator depletion]
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We didn't give the devil his due.
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