A number of wildlife parks involved with the Save the Tasmanian Devil program could refuse to participate in the organisation's latest release, arguing it would place the species' future in jeopardy.
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It follows a plan by the program to release 32 devils - 16 from the state's insurance population and 16 from the wild - into bushland at Stony Head in August.
Wildlife organisations argue the latest program places unquarantined devils into a disease-riddled environment.
Previous programs have been controlled by fencing to restrict devils contracting the non-viral and transmittable parasitic cancer, devil facial tumour disease.
Devils born out of a previous program on Maria Island will be combined with captive born animals from the insurance population to compare whether one group does better than the other in survival.
Devil Ark general manager Tim Faulkner said the latest release was based on a lack of science and ignored a duty of care to devil safety.
“We can’t breed devils at the Ark that people, care, support ... and send them back to catch the disease and die a certain, suffering death,” he said.
Mr Faulkner said he was frustrated the decision was made before releasing results of a vaccination trial at Narawntapu National Park from 2015.
Trowunna Wildlife Park owner Androo Kelly said the devils clearly weren’t ready to be released into the wild unrestricted.
“They should maintain the insurance population as the priority at this stage, until there’s further knowledge about the population in the wild and that might take another five years,” he said.
Mr Kelly said not enough was known about the disease, and argued putting the devils in a diseased environment could in fact further feed the disease.
Mr Faulkner said Devil Ark supported 52 per cent of the mainland category one disease-free population, and he estimated that he and Mr Kelly were responsible for 30 per cent of the state-owned devils.
He said he withdrew a remaining four devils from the Stony Head program, after sending about 23 devils to last year’s Tasman Peninsula release.
Last year, a second disease emerged known as Devil Facial Tumour Strain Two, and it is not known whether it evolved on its own or as result of the first disease.
The overall disease is present in more than 80 per cent of the wild population.
Save the Tasmanian Devil Program team leader of monitoring and management Dr Samantha Fox agreed releasing the devils into Stony Head unrestrained could be dangerous, but the devils had showed resilience.
”No conservation program has ever made significant headway without taking some risk and we feel we are at the point," she said.
“You’ve got to remember this program (Save the Tasmanian Devil) has been in place for 13 years, and you can monitor a population to its death, but at some point you have to take a risk.”
She said the results of the vaccination program had not been released, as it was part of a larger trial.
Dr Fox stressed the wild devil recovery was still a pilot project, and the program would be reevaluated after its final release at Mt William in 2017.
“We are still maintaining the insurance population and the wild devil recovery pilot project that we are undertaking still requires the insurance population," she said.
Dr Fox agreed the overall state of the devils had not improved, though they were monitored each year in the same sites and time period to ensure accuracy.
“Those devils that we release...if anything is happening we obviously have a duty of care to those devils, they will be removed from the wild and we have done that previously.”