Charles Wooley on Devil worship
Charles Wooley recently reported new developments in the program to save the Tasmanian Devil – on ninemsn’s 60 Minutes (July 27, 2008).
On the Team Blog, he writes:
When I was a kid I spent my first years in the wild Tasmanian backwoods. In bed at night I would be kept fearfully awake by the snarling, howling, growling of a legendary Tasmanian critter which I only ever heard and never got to see. My fears were not assuaged by my parents reassurances that the sounds that scared me were merely those of the Devil.
It is also an early childhood memory that the Anglican preacher in our little town went missing on his customary Sunday morning stroll before church, was lost somewhere in the thick bush, and was never found again.
I remember a couple of old-timers telling my dad over the back fence that: “the preacher is gone, they’ll never find his body, the devil would have eaten him”. This struck further chill in my little, childish heart…
Caption: The tumour prevents the devil from eating and they usually die within 18 months of being infected. The best chance of survival for the species is establishing Ark populations of disease-free devils.
