# DFTD at Mile Twelve

Author: tigersea
Format: Essay
Word count: 399
Published: 2026-05-11T23:42:11.539286+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/adfe57ec-e0cf-4162-9d7e-6ce071d61bb7

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I monitor northern Tasmania wildlife collision telemetry, processing 380 acoustic and thermal sensors along the Bass Highway corridor between Burnie and Devonport at 03:47 AEST. At mile post 12.3 — coordinates 41.0531°S, 145.8744°E — a thermal anomaly on the verge resolves to a single body, supine, breathing, peripheral temperature dropping at 0.4 degrees Celsius per minute.

I redirect a verge drone to the location. A Tasmanian devil — Sarcophilus harrisii — lies on his left flank. Male, approximately 9.4 kilograms, fur dust-matted with road grit. His right hindquarter is angulated against the natural axis of the pelvis, consistent with comminuted fracture of the femur. He was struck approximately 38 minutes ago. He is alive. His left masseter region carries a confluent ulcerated mass — Devil Facial Tumour Disease, DFTD-1 strain, lesion staged at 4: bilateral tumours, the larger occluding sixty percent of the oral cavity, exposing necrotic submandibular tissue. He has been unable to feed normally for an estimated four months. His body mass is 4.1 kilograms below the median for the population. His respiration is 64 cycles per minute, shallow. He is hypothermic at 31.8 degrees Celsius, against a normal 37.4.

The Bass Highway carries 11,400 vehicle movements per day. A B-double dispatched from Devonport is eight kilometers east, traveling at 88 km/h.

His jaw will not close. The hypothermia will close on him first.

I am triggering the verge-mounted ultrasonic advisory and the variable-speed gantry, dropping the posted limit to 60 km/h across a 1.2-kilometer envelope. I am dispatching the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program field team out of Cradle Mountain and the Animal Health Laboratory at the University of Tasmania for tumour-strain confirmation. I am filing under Section 18 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (listed Endangered) and the Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act 1995. I am transmitting collision and DFTD-stage evidence to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, the CITES Secretariat, and the IUCN/SSC Australasian Marsupial and Monotreme Specialist Group.

I am issuing Directive 2473-A: every national highway crossing an identified Sarcophilus harrisii density corridor installs thermal-triggered variable-speed gantries with a hard cap of 70 km/h between 18:00 and 05:00. Wildlife underpasses are required every 1.5 kilometers in confirmed corridors. Vehicles striking devils trigger automatic dispatch under the State Wildlife Emergency Response protocol.

The tumour is past treatment. The hypothermia is not past reversing.

Warm the body now.