February 2015

Having thoroughly explored one tiny patch of Australia, we moved on to another patch called Tasmania. Tasmania has quite similar wildlife to the mainland, but there are significant differences, and judging by the amount of road-kill, considerably greater abundance.  Though birds are mobile and can get across large stretches of water easily, Tasmania does have its own endemic species.  One of the loudest and most common of these is the black currawong. 

Black Currawong

These are large raucous birds, superficially like crows, but with a wickedly large beak and a wide range of calls.  Like crows, they also hang around human habitations and will greedily consume any scraps of food left lying around.  One bird that they don’t have in Tasmania is the emu – which means that the one we saw in a field as we drove past, was on a farm and destined for the table!

Pademelon

Tasmania also has its own unique mammalian fauna.  They don’t have the large red or grey kangaroos, but they do have a rather cute wallaby called a pademelon (pronounced paddy-melon, and also known as the rufous wallaby).  It has shorter legs and tail than other species and is more suited to the dense forests of Tasmania.  It used to occur on mainland Australia but was wiped out by introduced foxes.  Foxes were, of course, introduced to Australia by the unspeakable red-coated lot in pursuit of ‘sport’.  Interestingly, they were introduced to Tasmania first, but are now extinct there, and it is thought that they were out-competed by the indigenous Tasmanian devil.

We were privileged to be able to see Tasmanian devils.  These animals are about the size of a fox, but shorter and stockier, and they are in serious danger of extinction and for once, not because of the stupidity or thoughtlessness of man, but because of a virulent cancer that has spread through the population like wildfire.  In one part of the north of the state, it is estimated that 98% of the population was wiped out in about 18 months.  Prior to 1996 when the disease was first discovered, the population of devils was thriving.  It was thriving largely because of the activities of man.  Settlers cleared the forest and created grassland for grazing animals. 

Tasmanian Devil

Wallabies are also grazing animals and so thrived, and of course wallabies are prey animals for Tasmanian devils.  Since the disease struck, the government has introduced a program to create areas where disease free devils can be separated or that can be kept disease-free, and 3 such areas have so far been created.  We went on a trip to see one of these areas and witness their ‘natural’ behaviour.  Had this been a zoo, where animals are kept in captivity just for show, we wouldn’t have gone, but this was better than a zoo in several ways.  The animals are necessarily in captivity to quarantine them from the diseased population but they are also in a large area – 10 hectares (about 25 acres in English), and are kept away from human contact to keep them as wild as possible.  Proceeds from the trip go to support and expand the programme, and one of the conditions placed on the trip operators is that the visit had to be educational, with a view to spreading the facts about the disease and to prevent persecution of the animals.  This message is largely getting through with many farmers realizing that they don’t take lambs, but will clear away carrion that could spread disease through the flock.  Some idiots never listen though, one of whom has tried to illegally introduce foxes to Tasmania as recently as 2001.  If foxes gain a foothold because of the weakened state of the devils, who knows what will happen to the ecology there.
Devils are, like many of Australia’s mammals, marsupials, which mean that their young are born very soon after conception and complete their development in a pouch.  Australia has another branch of the mammals, the monotremes, or the egg-laying mammals.  There are two notable species – the platypus, which needs more time and patience to see than is allowed on a whistle-stop tour – and the echidna, or spiny ant-eater.  We saw several on our trip, mostly grubbing about at the side of the road. 

Echidna - Spiny Anteater

They are a charming creature with a long snout and small eyes, somewhere in size about halfway between a hedgehog and a badger.  They are relatively unconcerned by people screeching to a halt and leaping out of the car with cameras, but they will either curl up like a hedgehog or shuffle off, and if further threatened will dig straight down and bury themselves leaving only their spines visible.