Tasmanian Devil (20 page)

On one occasion a child's parents purchased a soft toy when entering the Park. The toy was a devil, and a real devil managed to get hold of it. The child was distraught. Anderson entered the enclosure, gave chase and retrieved the toy, which was only a bit damp. This is an aspect of the animal which puzzles US visitors in particular; their expectation is that, like Taz, it has a blinding turn of speed.

Spring and early summer visitors are likely to see unweaned pups. In January 2004 one of the enclosures contained four newly independent siblings, their mother having been returned a month before to the nearby adult enclosure, and another four still with their mother because of the persistence of a late suckler. The independent four continued to display a great sense of bonding, sleeping all over each other.

The two mothers are sisters, who three years earlier had arrived at the Park as roadkill pouch-young. The adult enclosure's patriarch is seven-year-old Max, whose final litter was approaching two years in age. The Park's multiple bloodlines permit a number of breeding combinations—a captive breeding strategy that has become all the more important now that wild devils are no longer being introduced while DFTD remains rampant. It would be enormously risky to introduce a wild strain, despite the Tasman Peninsula's isolated and naturally low devil population, which is linked to the rest of the island only by a swing bridge across a manmade canal at Dunalley.

Educating visitors as to the specific implications of DFTD, and of the extinction threats to so many other native species, is for Anderson a significant aspect of the Park's role. Anderson is a great admirer of devils. For her, they are ‘very shy. The devils we have were reared by their parents or brought in from the wild and we've never had any problems with them at all. The only devils that I have seen to be aggressive are the ones that were hand-reared. They've got no fear of humans'.
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She can attest to this. Once she was in an enclosure bending down to get a water bowl when a devil that had been hand-reared latched on to her shin. She shook it off by leaping out of the enclosure but has a scar as a permanent reminder of the incident.

Foraging behaviour is encouraged through varying types and amounts of food. On one day a number of small pieces will be tossed into the enclosure; on another it may be just one large piece for them to wrestle over. Two or more devils tugging at a chunk of meat and bone may look like competitive feeding but it is in fact cooperative, because in this way the food is quickly broken into manageable pieces.

An innovative, and energetic, feeding method is the suspension of meat on a bungee cord for the animals to leap at. Meat pieces are also hidden about the enclosures, in cardboard boxes and in toilet roll centres. Roadkill, generally wallaby, makes up a large proportion of the food, along with laboratory rats, and rooster carcasses from chicken farms. Devils are partial to dog biscuits and eggs. Anderson has observed a mother attempting to encourage her young from the den by running up and down outside with food in her mouth. On the other hand, there are times when the mother will take food from her young.

Live baby devils are frequently found in the pouches of their roadkilled or disease-killed
mothers. They are kept in captivity by human carers (to whom they readily take) until
old enough to fend for themselves in the wild. (Courtesy Nick Mooney)

The two enclosures are to be replaced by a large one-acre enclosure alongside the raptor rehabilitation centre. It is to be hoped that a healthy population of devils will result for eventual breeding purposes, should DFTD continue to decimate the wild populations. And visitors will hopefully continue to be informed of the fragility of Australia's natural world and the threat to so many of its species. Anderson's silent raptors are a stark reminder of this. A pair of wedge-tailed eagles occupies an open enclosure. They can't fly. One was shot, the other flew into a powerline. A goshawk, shot through a wing, was cared for and released; the same bird was returned with a bullet through its neck and is now a permanent resident. They are a few of the many brought in for treatment. Many more continue to die, victims of cars, guns, powerlines, poisoning, trapping and domestic animals, as extinction threats rise inexorably across Tasmania and all of Australia.

Fort Wayne is a city in northern Indiana. Its story is in many ways a microcosm of US history. In 1794, after defeating the indigenous Miami peoples, General Anthony Wayne built a fort at the junction of two rivers in order to facilitate permanent white settlement. The arrival of the railroad in the 1850s significantly boosted the town. Today it's a manufacturing centre surrounded by fertile farmland, with a population of about 170 000—similar to Hobart's. Among its attractions is a children's zoo. The opening of its Australian Adventure in 1987 was the crowning event of that year. The zoo broke all attendance records, and received a prestigious award from the professional zoo community.
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A Tasmanian devil named Coolah became a star attraction. When Coolah died in May 2004, he was seven and a half years old: possibly the world's oldest devil. Elaine Kirchner, supervisor of the Australian Adventure, looked after Coolah throughout his life at the zoo. Her experiences were summarised in an email interview with David Owen.
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David Owen
: You've looked after twelve devils in seventeen years—you must have a very good understanding of the nature of the animal. Do they differ much in personality? Any interesting examples of personality contrasts?

Elaine Kirchner
: Tasmanian devils, like most animals, do have differences in ‘personalities'. Some are very much loners and don't want anything to do with other animals. On the other hand, we had two sisters, Rosie and Kestra, that nearly always slept in the same nest box. Every few days they would move all of the nest material to a different nest box and set up housekeeping there. We generally housed our devils singly, but Rosie and Kestra were very close. The only time we mixed more than these two together was during breeding season. We have found that during most of the year the female devils are dominant. It seems that when breeding season rolls around, the males assert their importance, if only for these few days.

Frequently the males will drag the females around the exhibit by the scruff of the neck. They often corner them in a nest box, not allowing them to leave for up to two or three days.

   Some animals were very curious and routinely explored every corner of their exhibit each morning. Others were content to go for a run around the place and settle in to sleep.

Many years ago we moved them to an outdoor area, and then added four shelter areas for them. These were triangular, covered with brush and wood chips. All faced the public but were at various distances from the boardwalk. Some animals chose to sleep in the one closest to the public, some far away, and often an animal slept behind the shelters!

   New animals in the exhibit always seem to be a challenge. When we got our two sisters in 1996, we had our assistant volunteer watch the animals to make sure they stayed in the exhibit. After about an hour or so, we heard a frantic call from Dianna saying that one of the youngsters was at the top of the fence. Dianna was armed with only a radio and a clipboard. Needless to say, all of the animal care staff moved quickly to contain the devil and modifications were immediately made to the hotwire!

David Owen
: The devil's reputation for being ferocious is unfounded. But you surely must have developed a good respect for their inquisitiveness which includes a preparedness to bite.

Did you have any unpleasant encounters over the years? And if so did you develop any methods to counter that instinct? And your broader interaction with them?

Elaine Kirchner
: We learned over the years to have a healthy respect for all of those teeth and those strong jaws. My first encounter with an uncontained devil came early one morning, only a few weeks after we had received our first two animals from Australia. We had been told that devils don't climb, and so had them housed in holding areas built of concrete block with wooden fences. The enclosure was just over a meter in height. These animals were less than a year old and quite agile. When I arrived at work one morning, I noticed that one of the animals was not in her pen. A quick look around told the story—she was on top of our bird holding cages, way back in the corner. I quickly called the assistant director for help, he crawled up on top of the cages with a net to recapture the critter. I was in the aisleway underneath him, along with a cage housing two angry water rats. The only flaw to this plan was an unsecured piece of wire. The animal went through the hole and into the hall with me. I had no net, and no way to get to one without letting the animal escape. We chased each other around the water rat cage several times until I managed to get a cage door open and the animal went into the cage. We later learned that the folks who told us that devils don't climb had one animal who was quite old and very obese!

   In general, we don't enter the enclosure with the devils.

If we must, we use a large warehouse broom to keep between ourselves and the animal. They seem not to know that they can go around the ends of the broom. When we need to restrain them, we try to grab them at the base of the tail. It takes several keepers to hold one down for blood draws. Since they have virtually no neck, someone needs to have rather large and strong hands to hold down the head.

David Owen
: Your website mentions devils at San Diego, Cincinnati and Toronto zoos; also a figure of some sixty devils in North America since 1983. Did Fort Wayne begin with a consignment from Australia or did you obtain captive stock from other North American zoos?

Elaine Kirchner
: Eight of our animals came from Australia, the rest from North American zoos.

David Owen
: I hope Coolah's enjoying his later years. What can you tell us about him?

Elaine Kirchner
: Coolah is a rather small animal as devils go.

He is nearly all black, just has a smallish patch of white on his rump. His teeth seem to be in pretty good shape. We do give our devils some whole prey but most of it is in chunks. They eat slices of rabbit, whole day-old chicks, fish (though he always bites off the heads), dry dog food, and the occasional meat ball. His birthdate is listed as January 1, 1997 at the Cincinnati Zoo, though I don't know if that is an actual date or an estimate. In looking at the records I just noticed that his grandfather actually lived at our zoo also for a few years at the same time Coolah was here.

   Our first Tasmanian devils arrived here in June of 1987, just at the time we opened our Australian area. In 1989 we acquired four more animals from Australia, giving us a total of six.

   As an older animal, Coolah does have some health issues, but still continues to hold his own. Our zoo opens for the season in a few weeks, so he'll be back in his exhibit then.

Until that time he has two indoor pens and a couple outdoors as well. Just yesterday he was laying in the sun in mid-afternoon, acting like he had not a care in the world. He looks forward to his morning chick—even if it has medicine inserted inside it. Most mornings he comes out of the box to greet me, though he does like to sleep in at times. Now that it is light [early] in the mornings, he most often gets up and looks for his morning treat, though that comes a bit later.

David Owen
: Finally, did you need to have much contact with Australian wildlife people?

Elaine Kirchner
: I do have contact with a number of Australian zoo folks. Androo Kelley from Trowunna Wildlife Park has been a great help with devils, and actually visited us several years ago. I have worked with a number of Australian species—echidnas, wombats, dingoes, Eastern grey kangaroos, Tammar wallabies, kowari, lizards, & numerous bird species. I have hand-reared two kangaroos and a wallaby. They lived with me for up to a year and went everywhere I went—I wore them in a pouch around my neck during the day, hung them on the doorknob at night. I am a co-studbook keeper for grey kangaroos in North America, and devote a lot of time to those wonderful creatures.

Elaine Kirchner contacted David Owen not long after the conclusion of the interview, on 23 April 2004:

I need to let you know that we have unfortunately discovered that Coolah has inoperable cancer. He has a large tumor on his backside that is also infected. We will still allow him to be on display and will probably have a sign detailing his health problems. I see no reason to banish him from his exhibit just because he is ill. I will let you know how things are going with him—right now he in on an antibiotic to clear up some of the infection and some pain medication. We have done an ultrasound and brought in a couple of consulting vets.

Her next email read:

I'm sorry to have to inform you that we had to euthanize our Tasmanian devil Coolah this morning. He had an inoperable malignant tumor on his backside. We've let him enjoy the sunshine and be on exhibit when he felt like it for the past few weeks. In the past week he has stopped eating—never a good sign for a Tassie devil.
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