Hopes healthy Tasmanian devils will soon be returned to the wild after being on brink of extinction
The threat of extinction to Tasmanian devils may have decreased enough to start to return insurance populations to the wild, a wildlife expert says.
The marsupial has been battling a facial tumour disease which it was feared would wipe out the wild population.
The danger of extinction has been lessened by a successful national breeding program which has resulted in 600 devils in sustainable insurance populations spread across 31 zoos.
A wild population of 70 devils has also been established on Maria Island off Tasmania's east coast where an initial insurance population of 28 was re-located.
Population monitoring has suggested the population in the state's north-east, where the disease was first detected, has shown the species is continuing to survive, albeit in extremely low numbers.
Both factors are being celebrated as the most positive news in a decade and Tasmanian researchers are cautiously optimistic the species is no longer on the brink of extinction.
Wildlife biologist Nick Mooney said it was not an unexpected development but it had come a little sooner than had been speculated.
"The wild population is still going down, but in the areas the disease has been the longest, population it appears to have stabilised to very, very low levels," he said.
"There is kind of law of diminishing returns about how much you find out about the disease, and we found out a lot very quickly, and now we think we know enough to tackle wild conservation again.
"If the insurance population is unsustainable because it's so expensive then those two things collide and it's time to start moving some animals back into the wild, if it can we done properly and all the signs are they will be."
New program to test vaccine, monitor numbers
The state and federal governments have announced a new project focusing on population monitoring.
The Wild Devil Recovery Project will also progress work on possible vaccines.
Experts at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research have developed a new technique and will now test it in the field.
Mr Mooney said moving animals back to the wild on the Tasmanian mainland could start by mid next year.
"There is no reason we should not start trying some particular management issues in the wild."
"It is time to move on and get animals back in the wild and fix up some of the wild areas.
"One of the problems with letting a species get even rarer is that other problems can occur ... if an animal is very, very rare it's very vulnerable to other things - even bad luck, chance events.
"So we need the animal a little bit more robust in the wild to protect itself and do its ecological job of being a big carnivore and tidying up the bush and all the rest of the things devils do.
"We've got to move on, not stopping other stuff, but a new emphasis on wild development."
The marsupial remains a threatened species but Tasmanian Environment Minister Matthew Groom said the danger of extinction had decreased due to the insurance program.
He said the devil population was now more secure than it had been at any time during the past decade.
