I was researching Tasmanian Devils on the Web the other day and I found a site that said Australia was debating whether or not to allow the export of native wildlife as pets. Some people thought that a Tasmanian Devil could be domesticated; some said it was too dangerous. Then I recalled reading about a woman in Tasmania who actually breeds Devils, but this was at least 15 years ago. So, what’s the Straight Dope? Can Tasmanian Devils be made into pets? And even if they can, SHOULD they be?
If you don’t mind all the slobbering and maniacal spinning.
I should note for the record that the Tasmanian wildlife authorities do not consider the devils endangered. See question 50 on this Tasmanian Devil FAQ.
Just because someone can breed them, doesn’t mean they make good pets.
I’ve seen them: no, I don’t believe they are domesticable.
BTW anyone know how Warner Bros came across the TD? I’m surprised they would even know where Tasmania was in, what, the 50s when they first used that character?
If somebody’s willing to put years into careful breeding of Devils with tamer nature it can be done, but you may never have a completely safe animal.
Skunks and Ferrets as examples, they’ve been bred domestic for many year, yet are still able and sometimes too willing to deliver a serious bite to any human, instinct runs deep in all of us.
Maybe your 3 year old can pull the tail of the family German Shepherd, but the family skunk may take offense out of instinct.
I’d consider Devils to be on the same plane as Wolves…
Don’t let anyone tell you Wolves or Wolf Hybrids are considered domestic, no matter how hard it’s been tried!
There are a few things that would stop you from keeping Tasmanian Devils as pets:
- they are quite aggressive (although not as much as some people think)
- they are carnivorous - I wouldn’t want one near a baby
- they give off a really offensive odour when stressed
- they have really powerful jaws (they consume their prey by crunching it up and eating it all - bones, fur, the lot) and a bite from one would not be a happy experience.
- they are voracious feeders - single animals have been known to consume an entire cow in a few days
- they are nocturnal
- they can be extremely noisy
- they can burrow to a limited extent and it would be difficult to keep one in your garden
- they are not pack animals (although they may feed in groups) like dogs and wouldn’t recognise dominance or learn to obey orders -they’d just fight anything that tried to push them around
- they are protected animals in Australia and I assume that they would be similarly protected in the US under intergovernmental treaty
Imagine making a pet of an animal that never obeyed your orders, screeched and howled all night and had the strength to crush every bone in your body.
One thing I forgot to mention - they are truly gruesome eaters. There’s a Quicktime movie of one eating on this site
Apparently, from a serendipitous offhand remark:
from http://looney.toonzone.net/articles/tazarticle.html
Agreed, I’m surprised anyone in Hollywood thought “Tasmanian Devil” meant anything other than Errol Flynn.
I still wonder how they even knew about the animal in the first place. Maybe your average 1950s animator was more geographically educated than I thought.
IANAZoologist, but my one encounter with Devils (at a zoo outside of Sydney) made me realize that any other animal I’ve seen is a cute and fuzzy little critter in comparison. I agree with Motog’s list, especially the bit about “they’d just fight anything that tried to push them around.” I was lucky enough to be there at feeding time, and it was a sight (and sound) to see (and hear). Fairly similar to the video Motog linked, but the video stars are more subdued than the ones I saw.
In conclusion, I suppose they could be pets, though they wouldn’t be good ones, and I can’t imagine anyone without organized crime connections wanting one.
Sound just like cats really. 
(Apologies for deliberately bowdlerising quote.)
Now that I can’t believe. A big devil weighs 8 kilos. A small cow weighs 200 kilos. No animal that size can eat 4 or more times its own body weight daily. Even tiny mammals like shrews and bats can only manage twice their body weight.
I think it would be more a case of a large group of TD’s demolishing a cow. In fact, Tasmanians are very worried because some sort of retrovirus is decimating the population of TD’s. One of the ways that they first realised there was a problem was when farmers began to notice that dead cattle and sheep which would normally have been scavenged and gone within days, were lying in the fields unmolested.
I followed that up and searched for a reference to what I had often heard. All I managed to find were several references to groups of TDs consuming entire cattle and statements that single animals could consume 5 kgs or more in a single night.
I will thus, somewhat sheepishly, withdraw that particular comment. Everything else is correct as far as I know.