As scientists have been fighting to save the Tasmanian devil from extinction, it seems that another native species is under threat from a potentially devastating disease.
According to ‘The Mercury’, an outbreak of sarcoptic mange in the Narawntapu National Park in Tasmania has killed all but a handful of wombats in the area since 2009.
Sarcoptic mange is caused by a mite which burrows into the skin of the wombat. In humans and dogs, the mite is what causes scabies but it’s not known why mange affects wombats so badly, or why their immune systems can’t fight it off. What’s known is that left untreated, wombats with sarcoptic mange can become blind and deaf as their skin thickens over their eyes and ears. They eventually become too weak to scavange for food.
University of Tasmania wildlife ecologist Scott Carver told ‘The Mercury’ it was not known what was causing the outbreak or how far the disease had spread, but it had the potential to devastate wombat numbers.
“Sarcoptic mange is the number one disease of wombats nationally,” he said. “Unfortunately there is a real lack of good wombat population monitoring to be able to document how much it’s affecting the population.”
The outbreak in the Narawntapu National Park near Bakers Beach in the North-West of Tasmania had killed upwards of 95 per cent of the local wombats, Dr Carver said.
“It’s been catastrophic for that population. We can say anecdotally there appears to be a regional outbreak of mange affecting populations around the central northern areas of the state.”
Dr Carver is leading a team of three researchers from the University of Tasmania trying to better understand and manage the extent and impact of sarcoptic mange on local wombat populations.
“There’s a range of things we need to do and that we are doing. We’re working on ways to control this disease – which is very challenging in wild populations,” he said.
Dr Carver and other wombat researchers are also trying to find out how bad this outbreak really is. They are calling on the help of the public, asking people to log wombat sightings using an online system called WomSAT. Already, more than 5,000 wombats have been logged across Australia.
