Tasmanian Devil Research Paper

An anthropogenic driver is a factor, which causes a particular phenomenon, such as environmental change, to happen or develop with its origin in human activity. In this paper, we would be addressing the impacts of human invasion, the anthropogenic driver, on wildlife, with its main focus on the effect of the exacerbation of infectious disease of certain species. The result of Tasmanian Devil population loss, the reasons behind their population loss and the solutions adopted would be discussed. Human invasion refers to human intrusion into the natural habitats of wildlife, for example, deforestation, pollution, human interaction with the natural habitat. The principle subject of this paper is the Tasmanian Devil. Human invasion on the natural …show more content…
Firstly, one of the the problems that would arise would be that of the fox population(C.E. Hawkins, et al., 2006), the fox population is negatively related to the tasmanian devil population.This is because they compete for food and living spaces like dens. Currently, any fox introduction into the system is kept under control by the larger population of tasmanian devils (through the consumption of their food and living space and through preying on the fox young). When tasmanian devil population decrease, the foxes would have a higher chance of survival and thus the fox population would increase. This is not very positive because foxes are not native to the region and do not actually belong to the ecosystem, and having the number of foxes growing may eventually lead to harm for the tasmanian devil population. The lower population of tasmanian devils would compete with the higher population of the foxes and this would lead to the tasmanian devil population losing out as the larger number of foxes may prey on the tasmanian devil’s young and consume all the food, leading to their further detriment. In addition, foxes prey on agriculture such as sheep and goats which may affect the livelihood of subsistence farmers living in the area. Next, tasmanian devils are scavengers and they play a crucial role in consuming carcasses in the area(C.E. Hawkins, et al., 2006). The decline of the tasmanian devil population would mean that many of these carcasses would not be consumed. This might result in negative implications for humans such as the spread of diseases, a decrease in hygiene standard and a more widespread smell of rotting carcasses. Another large effect would be that on the Eastern Quoll, The Eastern Quoll has a very strong positive relationship with the tasmanian

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Tasmanian Devil Research Paper