00:00Australia has the worst mammal extinction on rate.
00:05The devils actually have a disease called devil facial tumour disease,
00:08which has gone through the population in Tasmania since 1996.
00:12It's decimated 90% of the population.
00:15There used to be around 450,000 devils and there's only 10% of that left now.
00:21They're critically endangered and projects like Aussie Arc
00:24are literally the key to their survival.
00:27So we need insurance populations because it looks like in the wild
00:30they're going to completely disappear.
00:32An insurance population of any species is a population that's kept
00:37in some form of captivity where the genetics are managed,
00:41the health is very, very carefully managed,
00:43and that population is an insurance policy against extinction.
00:47So even if the species were to go extinct in the wild,
00:51you've still got a genetically diverse, large group of individuals
00:55that could be used to save the species at large.
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