Australian wildlife could suffer deadly disease: researcher

0 Comments | AFP, October, 2007

SYDNEY (AFP) — Australian wildlife such as koalas and platypuses could fall prey to a disease similar to the deadly facial cancers killing Tasmanian Devils, a leading researcher said Wednesday.

Katherine Belov of Sydney University, who last week announced a breakthrough in the study of the contagious tumours that have killed 90 percent of some native devil populations, said species with small gene pools were at risk.

Belov's team found that a lack of genetic diversity in devils, carnivorous marsupials the size of a small dog, was responsible for the spread of the disfiguring cancer killing the species.

She warned that other native fauna with a limited gene pool due to inbreeding and shrinking numbers -- including some koala and platypus populations -- were...