Credit: SWNS / Aussie Ark / AMAZING ANIMALS+ / TMX
The Tasmanian devil joeys born last season at Aussie Ark in New South Wales, Australia, have received their first health checks.
The seasonal audit of the facility’s Tasmanian devils includes assessments before moving them into different enclosures in preparation for the 2023 breeding season.
The Tasmanian devil joeys born last season at Aussie Ark in New South Wales, Australia, have received their first health checks.
The seasonal audit of the facility’s Tasmanian devils includes assessments before moving them into different enclosures in preparation for the 2023 breeding season.
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AnimalsTranscript
00:00 It's a really exciting time for us at Ozark in the Barrington Tops.
00:09 We're currently catching all of our Tasmanian Devils in preparation for the 2023 breeding
00:15 season.
00:16 In catching our adults in order to move them around, it's also the first opportunity we
00:21 have to catch our juveniles that have been born in 2022.
00:29 This is Sandy, or Sandra Dee, and she is one of the Tasmanian Devil joeys born at Ozark
00:34 in 2022.
00:36 Throughout the year we've been monitoring our females with motion-sensored cameras, seeing
00:42 the joeys develop and finally growing up to independent juveniles.
00:49 At around four months old, the joeys no longer fit into mum's pouch very well, so instead
00:54 they hitch a ride on her back.
01:01 Here at Ozark we like to be as hands-off as possible.
01:03 We want our females to raise their joeys just like they would in the wild.
01:10 But we're able to get these insights through our camera technology.
01:15 When we catch one of our juvenile devils, we weigh them, we give them a body condition
01:19 score, we find out their gender.
01:21 This is testicle, so we've got a little boy.
01:25 Give them preventative treatments for internal and external parasites.
01:32 And we also take photos of them from a range of different angles in order to record their
01:37 unique white markings before giving them a microchip as well.
01:41 Good job.
01:44 For our Tasmanian Devil joeys, when we're catching them and giving health checks, because
01:48 they're independent from mum, we don't know who mum is and we certainly don't know who
01:53 dad is either.
01:55 Because making sure genetic diversity is maintained within our population, we need this critical
02:00 information.
02:01 We take a tissue biopsy from the base of their ear and send it to a genetic testing facility.
02:07 They have all of the data for our mums and dads on file, and so in a couple of months
02:12 can let us know who each joey belongs to.
02:16 That's not so big and scary, was it?
02:17 Once each Tasmanian Devil joey is processed, they're then housed in one of our smaller
02:22 short-term intensive enclosures until we have a nice group that are comfortable with each
02:27 other, which will then released into our big managed environmental enclosures.
02:31 [Music]