Thieves in Tasmania are stealing electronic fence posts designed to save the lives of endangered Tasmanian devils.
The thefts have bewildered the manufacturers, who say the $145 wildlife warning devices serve no purpose other than deterring wildlife and have limited resale value.
A toolbox containing 20 of the devices was stolen from the Murchison Highway near Waratah last month, while workers were updating the fence.
Jack Swanepoel, director of Wildlife Safety Solutions, the company that produces the devices, said the theft left him “pretty stunned”.
“It’s no use for them whatsoever, these devices,” he said. “People might think they can keep the foxes out of their place with them, but they only work on roads with headlights aiming at them.”
The devices are triggered by car headlights to emit a high-pitched noise and a flash of light, and are designed to scare wildlife off the road before the vehicle arrives.
They were trialled at Arthur River on Tasmania’s south-east coast in 2014 and found to reduce the number of animals killed by about 60%.
The devices were placed on either side of a 6.4km stretch of road at 25m intervals for a cost of about $7,000 a kilometre.
According to a report on the trial, there were 49 recorded roadkills within the protected areas, or 13.6 per kilometre, and 275 in the adjoining 6km of road, or 32.7 per kilometre.
Swanepoel said there were more than 600 devices dotted throughout Tasmania, split between four main sites. About 35 were stolen from the same area on the Murchison Highway earlier this year, according to Swanepoel, and others have been smashed or pushed over.
He is in discussions with the Tasmanian government about erecting signs telling motorists what the devices are for, in the hope they will leave them alone.
Cars are a significant threat to Tasmanian devils, particularly those animals that have been recently released to the wild. The carnivorous marsupial feeds on roadkill, but its numbers have plummeted in the past 20 years due to the spread of devil facial tumour disease, and the population is less able to wear the cost of devils getting flattened along with their meal.
Four of the 20 vaccinated, disease-free devils released into the Narawntapu national park in September 2015 were killed by cars in the first week.
“When you have spent $25,000 to $30,000 per devil to put them through the vaccination project only to have them killed by a car in the first few weeks, the financial impact, let alone the psychological toll, is high,” Devil Island Project chief executive Bruce Englefield told Guardian Australia at the time.
