Tasmanian devils are threatened with extinction by a contagious cancer transmitted between individuals during biting, with a captive insurance population program underway.
Tasmanian devils with DFTD develop progressive facial tumors that impair feeding causing starvation death. The progression from tumor emergence to death takes months during which the animals experience increasing difficulty eating and growing debilitation. Conservation efforts focus on maintaining disease-free populations for potential reintroduction after the disease has reduced in prevalence, but individual welfare of wild infected animals is extremely poor.