Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumor Disease

Introduction
The Tasmanian access (Sarcophilius harrisii) is the largest existing carnivorous marsupial and is presently threatened by a transmittable cancer cognise as Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumour sickness (DFTD). The first suspicion of DFTD came in the late 1990s by a tourists photograph while traveling in the bush of Mt. William National Park, Tasmania. In the past 15 years, almost 90% of Australias Tasmanian devils confound died due to the new arising cancer. The cancer is spreading so rapidly that scientists depend that within 5 to 15 years, the disease will engender spread to the entire species, causing extinction.
The aggressive tumour causes finale within 6 months because of airway obstruction and incapacity to expel food. DFTD is transmitted from biting during courtship battles and fighting in which facial nerve tumour cells of one devil are transferred to another as an allograft (McCallum, 2007). Scientists are still trying to discover a vaccination, but unfortunately they are many years out-of-door from completely understanding the disease.
History of the disease outbreak
In primeval 1996, a photograph was taken of a Tasmanian devil by Chris Baars, with an unusual facial deformity (Hawkins & McCallum, 2008, p.631).



It was described as a tumour, but preliminary investigation was put shoot due to scientists not having knowledge of DFTD. A year afterwards the first case was confirmed when a devil had been stack away and examined in the same area where the photo had been taken in due northmost-east Tasmania, 1997.
The disease outbreak was discovered in north east Tasmania, and having information from the most recent investigations (Hawkins & McCallum, 2008), that indicates the disease to have spread to devil population in the north and north east, to the east coast and the midlands, as far west as Bronte park (see fig 1) . There is no evidence to conceptualize the disease has spread to the west coast of Tasmania as of yet. In 2009, studies undertaken by the Tasmanian Department of...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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