RE: Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) were introduced to Australia for sport hunting in the 19th century, but ended up being responsible for the extinction of several native species, including the desert rat-kangaroo (Caloprymnus campestris)
Hi, @partywalrus!
I get why you are skeptical to this, and for the most part I also am. However, one key difference is that the red foxes never belonged to Australia in the first place, while the Tasmanian devils used to be found in certain places of the continent (and not only on Tasmania). No one knows why they went regionally extinct in Australia, but scientists believed they were on the mainland until 430 - 3,000 years ago (yeah, that's a huge spread, but the scientists cannot seem to agree on a number).
My point is that a reintroduction is generally considered much more safe than the introduction of a foreign species. The Tasmanian devil and the Tasmanian wolf/tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) were the apex predator in Australia along with the dingoes, so the theory is that they will be able to fill this niche again by out-competing the red foxes.
There are of course many things that can go wrong, but having Tasmanian devils back on the mainland would be a lot more "natural" than having foxes there, so the consequences are likely to be less than keeping the red fox the apex predator.
There are many examples of species that have been reintroduced after being regionally extinct (the Eurasian beaver is a good example; this was pretty much only surviving in Norway and parts of Russia), but I don't think there are many examples of reintroduced predators into a big region like this. The only other example that comes to mind is the Mexican Grey Wolf that was about to go extinct, but were captured and bred before being released back in the wild a while later.
That makes sense, but I'm still on the fence. Need to see some more actual cases, which we might see here.
More cases is always better. It will be interesting to see if Australia ever tried to reintroduce the devil back to the mainland, and if they ever do, I will surely look closely at the development.
Yeah for sure. I suppose Australia is a good place to conduct those experiments. If things go haywire, they are at least confined to the borders of the "island".
Hehe, that's true. But the thing is that the scenario you're imagining where the devils spread to most part of the island is more close to what nature was before humans intervened than what it is like now.