Behind the shriek: what you learn at a Tasmanian devil feeding tour

With her pink ears, sleek black fur and plum-like nose, Squizz is as cute as any marsupial you'll find in an Australian wildlife sanctuary. But once her mind turns to food, this Tasmanian devil's cheeky demeanour shifts gear, a guttural roar of pleasure accompanying the chilling crunch of teeth on bone as she hoes into a juicy wallaby leg. Enter more Tasmanian devils into the scrum, and you soon appreciate how this infamous, cartoon-worthy creature got its name, with bloodcurdling, banshee-like shrieks echoing through the forest.

"European settlers rock up, hear these hectic noises going on and were like, 'ah, something demonic is happening!'," explains Pru Carpenter, tour guide and keeper at Devils@Cradle, a conservation and breeding facility for Tasmanian devils, eastern quolls and spotted-tail quolls bordering the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park in Tasmania's alps.

"There's a reputation that comes with that name, and they do not deserve that reputation," Pru says as Squizz and co rip into their bloody dinner. "In fact, they should be rebranded Tasmanian sooks because they are not devilish whatsoever."

Sooky is certainly not how I'd describe this feeding frenzy; but as Pru goes on to explain during Devil@Cradle's After Dark Feeding Tour, it's the opportunistic nature of Tasmanian devils in the wild that is sadly leading to their demise.

In Tasmania, roadkill is an easy snack for nocturnal, carnivorous mammals such as Tassie devils and quolls. To them, the road smells like a Bunnings sausage sizzle; but as they feast on carrion in the middle of the road, they too risk becoming roadkill.

In fact, about 350 to 450 Tasmanian devils are killed on the road each year, with their black fur particularly hard for drivers to see at night. After the deadly Devil Facial Tumour Disease, which has a devastating impact on wild populations of devils, death on the roads is the biggest threat to the species' survival.

At the end of the After Dark tour, Pru offers her guests a word of advice, plus a rather odd souvenir - a wad of disposal gloves.

"These gloves will save lives," she says. "If you see roadkill while you're driving around Tassie, stop and move it to the side of the road - wearing the gloves, of course. By removing roadkill, you are preventing another endangered carnivore from becoming roadkill itself."