For the first time in three millennia, native Tasmanian devils have been born on mainland Australia.
The birth has been the culmination of a decade of work by conservationists seeking to bring the marsupial back to the land where it once roamed, before their species died out in Australia thousands of years ago.
Seven joeys, as all marsupial newborns are called, were discovered in the pouch of one Tasmanian devil mother at the 988-acre Barrington Wildlife Sanctuary in New South Wales.
Animal conservation nonprofit Aussie Ark, which has worked to repopulate the area with Tasmanian devils, announced the newcomers in an Instagram post on Monday.
“We had been watching them from afar until it was time to step in and confirm the birth of our first wild joeys,” they wrote in Monday’s social-media message. “And what a moment it was!”
Named for its longtime primary residence of Tasmania, the Australian island off the nation’s southern coast, the species once inhabited the mainland, too, until wild dogs — dingoes — were introduced to the continent. The devils were soon relegated to the island after being wiped out by the new predator.
Their population, now at about 25,000 on the island, was further devastated by a contagious form of cancer, called Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD), which has taken out an estimated 90% of Tasmanian devils since the disease was discovered in 1996.
After years of breeding the animals in captivity, Aussie Ark has reintroduced a total of 26 individuals to the sanctuary during the past few years in hopes they would reproduce and eventually recover their numbers naturally.
“If the devils don’t breed, it’s all over,” said Aussie Ark’s President Tim Faulkner in a video attached to the birth announcement on Instagram.
Environmentalists hope the devils’ return to mainland Australia will help rebalance booming populations of feral cats and foxes, which are known to prey on other endangered species, such as bandicoot.
“We’ve been able to historically — albeit in its infancy — return the devil to mainland, and today is another milestone entirely,” said Faulkner in the video. “Since the return of the devil in late 2020 … [they] have not only survived, but thrived — every single one of them.”
