Chris Hemsworth And Wife Elsa Pataky Release Tasmanian Devils In Australia [Video]

• Chris Hemsworth and his wife, Elsa Pataky, participated in the release of Tasmanian devils back to their original home in Australia.
• These animals will play a big role in balancing the ecosystem in the wilderness of their native land.
• They may even provide a big help in minimizing the wildfires in the country.

---

Even famous stars like Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky are fascinated with the Tasmanian devil and their wicked charm. 

On Monday, the celebrity couple joined the Aussie Ark, a conservation group in a New South Wales wildlife sanctuary. They wanted to help in reintroducing the endangered species back to their native land in Australia after 3,000 years.

They assisted in the release of Tasmanian devils into a 400-hectare (988-acre) wilderness in Barrington Tops National Park, north of Sydney.

“We laid some traps to catch the devils. And then we’re going to release them out into the wild,” Hemsworth told 7News.

“In 100 years, we are going to be looking back at this day as the day that set in motion the ecological restoration of an entire country,” president of the organization, Tim Faulkner, said in a press release.

Aussie Ark has worked tirelessly in the past decades to preserve the endangered devils and today there are about 25,000 wild devils in Tasmania.

In 2011, they took care of 44 devils and nurtured them to reproduce which has now multiplied to 200, including the 26 devils they recently released in Australia.

“Not only is this the reintroduction of one of Australia’s beloved animals, but of an animal that will engineer the entire environment around it, restoring and rebalancing our forest ecology after centuries of devastation from introduced foxes and cats and other invasive predators,” Faulkner added.

The president of the Global Wildlife Conservation charity, Don Church, said it was “an incredible example of how to re-wild our planet, bringing back the natural systems to the benefit of all life on Earth.”

Aussie Ark looks forward to releasing 40 more devils soon. They will conduct regular surveys of the area and use radio collars to monitor these carnivorous marsupials’ rehoming process.

The organization hopes that this will help in minimizing, if not eliminating entirely, the wildfire because devils hunt for other invasive predators including bandicoots, animals who create nests from dried leaves and thus spread wildfires faster. Should their population be controlled, their nests will be manageable as well.

“This is our response to that threat of despair: Come what may, ultimately we will not be deterred in our efforts to put an end to extinction and to re-wild Australia,” Faulkner said.

Source: New York Post