Sympathy for the Devil: Tasmanian Devils threatened by new cancer.

[NNadir]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/04/08/environment.australia.tasdevil.reut/index.html






MELBOURNE, Australia (Reuters) -- Movie studio Warner Bros., which earned million of dollars from its Tasmanian devil cartoon character "Taz," has now been asked to help save his real-life cousins in Australia which are being decimated by facial cancer.

Tasmanian devils on Australia's southern island state of Tasmania, the only place where these carnivorous marsupials are found in the wild, are being wiped out, with grossly disfigured animals dying within months of contracting the disease.

Environmentalists have approached the Hollywood studio to help raise funds to battle the disease, which has probably killed between a third and a half of the Tasmanian devil population in the past five to 10 years.

Only about 70,000 to 80,000 remain...




...Early signs of Devil Facial Tumor Disease, which scientists say could be a form of retrovirus, include small lesions and lumps that are similar to injuries scavenging devils inflict on each other as they squabble over carcasses...

.

Anyone here know anything about Tasmanian ecology? They're pretty far south, and I wonder to myself whether increased UV radiation might be a factor here.