Tasmanian devils wipe out thousands of penguins on tiny Australian island

Marsupials introduced to Maria Island, east of Tasmania, to safeguard their numbers but have decimated birdlife

An attempt to save the Tasmanian devil by shipping an insurance population" to a tiny Australian island has come at a catastrophic" cost to the birdlife there, including the complete elimination of little penguins, according to BirdLife Tasmania.

Maria Island, a 116-square-kilometre island east of Tasmania, was home to 3,000 breeding pairs of little penguins around a decade ago.