Tasmanian Devils Reintroduced To Australia

...and the question is why. This is a part of the description of the critter in Wikipedia —

Quote:

---

...The size of a small dog, the Tasmanian devil became the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world following the extinction of the thylacine in 1936. It is related to quolls and distantly related to the thylacine. It is characterised by its stocky and muscular build, black fur, pungent odour, extremely loud and disturbing screech, keen sense of smell, and ferocity when feeding. The Tasmanian devil's large head and neck allow it to generate among the strongest bites per unit body mass of any extant predatory land mammal. It hunts prey and scavenges carrion as well as eating household products if humans are living nearby...

---

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...043716375.html

Sounds like a smelly and nasty piece of work I would not like to see come in the yard.

Cool! I didn't know there were any still alive to start a breeding program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RixW...ent%2FClassics

They seem to like each other, and who can't love something whose ears glow :shrug:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mike

Cool! I didn't know there were any still alive to start a breeding program.

---

Yeah, I thought they were extinct too, but I had confused the Tasmanian Devil in my mind with the Tasmanian Tiger (thylacine), which is an extinct marsupial that looked more like a dog than the warthoggy Tasmanian Devil. The thylacine went extinct as far as we know in 1936, when the last one died in a zoo. There have been extensive efforts to revive the species with DNA from tissue still in existence.

Who doesn’t love Tas from the Warner Brothers cartoons though, which from the descriptions above of the real thing, does not seem too far off in the cartoons.