Scientists who have for the first time listed all the animal species that are threatened by cancer say "untold numbers" could be under threat.
Cancer poses a serious threat to wild animals. That is the message of two pathologists working for the Wildlife Conservation Society, in New York, who have for the first time listed all the animal species that are threatened by cancer.
Conservationists awoke to the problem in the late 1990s when numbers of Tasmanian devils plummeted as a result of the gruesome and disfiguring devil facial tumor disease. The disease causes tumors to form in and around the marsupials' mouth and they eventually die of starvation (see image: may upset some readers).
In 2008, the World Conservation Union listed the Tasmanian devil as endangered. Despite this, "cancer really isn't something that's been on anyone's radar in a conservation sense", says Denise McAloose, chief pathologist for the WCS's global health program.
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McAloose and colleague Alisa Newton have gathered together all the known examples of cancer in animals from those published in the scientific literature. Tasmanian devils are by no means the only affected species, and are not the only species to have become endangered because of the disease.
