Tasmanian devil died of pneumonia
Heart disease also a contributing factor in mammal’s death
Sylar, the male Tasmanian devil who died in late October at the ABQ BioPark Zoo, apparently died from bacterial pneumonia, according to a necropsy performed on the animal by the zoo’s head veterinarian, Carol Bradford.
The just-released necropsy report also found that Sylar suffered from moderate heart disease and “reactive changes” in his liver and spleen as a result of the heart disease and pneumonia.
“Both pneumonia and heart disease are fairly common causes of illness in older Tasmanian devils,” Bradford said. “Sylar was five and a half years old at the time of his death. Reported life span in Tasmanian devils is five to eight years.”
Keepers on Oct. 28 noticed that Sylar was lethargic and coughing. A medical treatment plan was immediately begun, but he died the next day in the zoo’s veterinary clinic.
The Tasmanian devils, part of an “ambassador” program, are owned by the government of Australia, which was immediately notified of Sylar’s death,
Dave Mathews, deputy director of the Albuquerque Cultural Affairs Department, said Tuesday. The department manages the zoo and the other BioPark attractions.
Sylar’s death leaves the zoo with three females, two of which came to the zoo in 2013 and the third one in December 2015. While the male and female devils could interact in their exhibit space, it was highly unlikely that the females could get pregnant “because they were older and considered to be beyond the breeding age,” Mathews said.
In any event, he said, the zoo does not now and has never operated a captive Tasmanian devil breeding program, and certainly not one sanctioned by the Australian government.
“If the government of Australia wants us to take a more active role in conservation for the Tasmanian devil, we would consider it,” Mathews said.
Sylar is the second Tasmanian devil to die at the zoo. In October 2014, a male named Jasper was found dead in his exhibit space. It was determined that he most likely died after a log in his enclosure slipped and struck him.
Tasmanian devils are native to Tasmania, an island off the southeast coast of Australia. Their numbers have been decimated in the wild by a highly contagious cancer called devil facial tumor disease that causes tumors on their faces, necks and around the ears, Tammy Schmidt, the zoo’s curator of mammals, told the Journal in the days after Sylar died. First identified in 1996, the disease is one of only three contagious cancers known in mammals, and there is no treatment or cure.
The disease is spread through biting, which is part of the animal’s normal competitive feeding and mating behavior, she said.
The animals are listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It is estimated that no more than 25,000 Tasmanian devils are left in the wild.