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Uh, but the Tasmanian Devil is still alive. The Tiger was "effectively" and literally wiped out by European immigrants.

danieltillett 8y ago
Umm I think you missed the point of my post. The Tasmanian tiger was found all over Australia until a few thousand years ago. It was the introduction of the Dingo that caused its extinction (this was not by European immigrants by the way). Only the population in Tasmania survived thanks to the rising sea level cutting off Tasmania from the Australian mainland. The population in Tasmania was too small to support the genetic diversity required for a sustainable population - the extinction was just a matter of time due to inbreeding. On this topic while there was some hunting, the cause of the collapse of the Tasmanian tiger population is unknown and there is some thought that it might have been due to disease not hunting. Yes the Tasmanian devil is still alive, but it has almost no genetic diversity. This is why the facial cancer is able to spread from animal to animal. Edit. I should add the Tasmanian devils were also found on the mainland until the dingos wiped them out too.
- XalvinX 8y ago
  Your "extinct from inbreeding" theory is not likely. There are many examples of animals coming back from groups well under 100, and doing fine. Such as the sea otter of California which was down to somewhere between 25 and 50 and is now over 3000, with no signs of deformities or other problems.
  - danieltillett 8y ago
    Sustained inbreed on a small island is a very common way for apex predators to become extinct and there are lots of examples from around the world of this happening after the last ice age. 100 might be OK for a short drop (~150 is considered the bottom end for most populations), but sustain a population at 50 breeding pairs for a few hundred generations and every allele in the population will end up homozygous though genetic drift.

Umm I think you missed the point of my post. The Tasmanian tiger was found all over Australia until a few thousand years ago. It was the introduction of the Dingo that caused its extinction (this was not by European immigrants by the way). Only the population in Tasmania survived thanks to the rising sea level cutting off Tasmania from the Australian mainland. The population in Tasmania was too small to support the genetic diversity required for a sustainable population - the extinction was just a matter of time due to inbreeding. On this topic while there was some hunting, the cause of the collapse of the Tasmanian tiger population is unknown and there is some thought that it might have been due to disease not hunting. Yes the Tasmanian devil is still alive, but it has almost no genetic diversity. This is why the facial cancer is able to spread from animal to animal. Edit. I should add the Tasmanian devils were also found on the mainland until the dingos wiped them out too.

XalvinX 8y ago
Your "extinct from inbreeding" theory is not likely. There are many examples of animals coming back from groups well under 100, and doing fine. Such as the sea otter of California which was down to somewhere between 25 and 50 and is now over 3000, with no signs of deformities or other problems.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  Sustained inbreed on a small island is a very common way for apex predators to become extinct and there are lots of examples from around the world of this happening after the last ice age. 100 might be OK for a short drop (~150 is considered the bottom end for most populations), but sustain a population at 50 breeding pairs for a few hundred generations and every allele in the population will end up homozygous though genetic drift.