Is mankind responsible for the plague which is affecting the Tasmanian Devil?

I have seen graphs that suggest a direct correlation between the incidence of devil facial tumour disease and the use of Atrazine by the major timber company here in Tasmania. I won't mention their name as they have been known to sue anyone who says anything bad about them.

Atrazine is an emergent herbicide used by the company to control weeds in their extremely expansive devastatingly monocultural plantations. Atrazine has been proven to have devastating effects on a number of animal clades including frogs.

I believe that Atrazine has in some affected both the immune sytem of devils as well as allowed the virus to mutate into the cancerous thing it is.

You are probably right in saying, "it is nature" in that the virus has probably always been around but it has been man's influence that has allowed the two things I mentioned to occur so it is therefore our responsibility to fix it.

Yes.

Human activities have reduced the territory and numbers of Tasmanian devils into one small corner of their former range. In doing so their genetic diversity has been reduced by resultant inbreeding to such an extent that the tumor cells from one can infect others because the immune systems of the devils don't recognize the tissue as foreign.

The facial cancer is just that, cancer cells that have mutated enough, not just to become cancerous, but have re-evolved into single celled organisms that live as a heterogeneous infectious colony. It is not the result of a virus, or bacteria, it is an infectious cancer. Daughter cells from a tumor that has outlived the individual it first appeared on.

I don't think there is any evidence that humans are responsible. It's a cancer that is easily spread. But that doesn't mean we can't help.

yes