The Tasmanian Devil is an amazing creature, a marsupial the size of a small dog. They like to sleep during the day, but they become active at about five minutes to 3:00 pm, which is feeding time at the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park on the road to Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula.
Devils exhibit “communal feeding” behavior, which sounds like the kind of thing we would want to emulate. However, when you see how two devil brothers slash at each other’s faces and rip apart a wallaby carcass, you may want to reconsider.
Tasmanian Devils are currently suffering from Devil facial tumor disease, a kind of cancer that is transmitted by physical contact between animals where cancer cells spread directly from open sores to facial lacerations. Something like 70% of Tasmanian Devils have perished since 1996 from this malady. The Conservation Park is trying to isolate its population on the Tasman Peninsula from devils on the rest of Tasmania and so far these efforts have been successful.