Devil Ark expands

With an ever expanding population, largely due to two fantastic breeding seasons, we are inin the process of building new FREs (free range enclosures) to accommodate this year’s joeys and senescent founders (aging devils).

Last year 26 young were born at the Ark and this year as many as 40 little joeys have been seen. This is a fantastic! and the highest breeding result for a captive facility holding Tasmanian devils.

Our population has grown from 44 founders to 120 residents; we have a target figure of 360 by 2016 and hope to house as many Devils as 1000 at full capacity.

However, more animals mean we require more free range enclosures (FREs) to house them. So we need to increase our enclosures from 9 to 13 FREs – ranging in size from 2 - 4.4h.

Construction started mid-October, with Central Coast Fencing, Ellerston machine operators and a team of builders from our primary sponsor The Australian Reptile Park braving mountain conditions to get the job done.

Some of our construction crew have been living on site in demountable homes and using camping equipment for eating and showering....I know what you’re thinking...and yes we do have a porto-loo!

In the short time workers have been at the Ark a new fence lines have been cleared dug and constructed, mounds where the devils will call home have been constructed and the site for our Interpretation Centre has been cleared.

Three of our new FREs will be used as crèche yards to house our new additions from this year. A crèche yard is kinda like a pre-school for little devils, where they can interact and learn much needed behaviours - such as social feeding, establishing a pecking order with other devils and other enrichment such as climbing and foraging for insects and other natural small food items. Previous crèche yards have proven very successful and a lot of natural wild behaviours have been observed.

Our new senescent FRE is kind of like a retirement home for old devils. In the wild, being such a competitive animal, they only have a life span of 5-6 years on average and don’t die of old age; instead they die of starvation or even predation by other devils … remember a devils’ life is all about survival of the fittest!

mound for devil den

But in captivity they can live to be 8-9 and like all aging animals (ourselves included) are effected by a range of ailments, the most common being eye cataracts and arthritis in the hips! The older devils would be bullied by the younger ones and as our duty of care, a separate FRE will accommodate our aging original founders...We’re certain they have earned it!

We’re constantly being asked by people if they can visit and by early next year, this will be a reality. We are building an interpretative centre which will make for an exciting opportunity to visit Devil Ark on advertised dates during the year.

Our education centre will be very interactive, and give our visitors the chance to understand the terrible disease effecting the Tasmanian wild population, showing a timeline of the disease and helping to better understand how it has spread, information on devils in general and why Devil Ark is so important to the preservation not only of this species, but to ensure that animals breed and housed here will be suitable for a long term plan return to the wild.

 the site of our information centre

In general the biggest problems we will face during construction is the weather, fingers crossed so far it has been great, with long sunny days. (except for that snow dump a few weeks back!)

But when it rains here it rains hard, and the ground turns to mud, just look back at our construction photos in 2011! If all goes to plan construction will be finished by the new year and we hope our Interpretation centre will be open soon after.

Devil Ark is only going to get bigger and bigger and we thank that various people who have donated time, equipment and made donations...we wouldn’t be here without you.