Bruce Englefield's passion for the devil has made him Tasmania's candidate for Australian of the Year.
The Tasmanian Devil that is.
Just three years after becoming an Australian citizen, Mr Englefield, 67, received the honour after moving countries to help save Tasmanian Devils from extinction.
The species is riddled with a contagious facial tumour disease and so, intrigued by the devils and moved by their plight, Bruce and his wife Maureen moved from England nine years ago, bought a wildlife park and made it a safe haven for disease-free devils.
'Right place, right time'
He says his candidacy for the Australian of the Year award is a chance to further his work.
"That's the only importance of it as far as I'm concerned, it's the profile it's not for me, it's for the team and everybody. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time," he told AAP.
"I'm not decrying the award at all, what I'm saying is the importance of it is fellow Australians recognise that it's important we save this animal. I just happened to be the one who got it going."
Others might say Bruce has mastered the Australian art of the understatement.
Apart from relocating and coming up with the concept of Devil Island - a 28-acre fenced-off zone where disease-free devils live and breed in a protected wildlife area - he also ran the London Marathon at age 65 with a team of 10 Tasmanians, in "about four hours and 40 minutes" to raise the funds to do it.
Since launching Devil Island with 11 devils last May, in Bicheno, on the state's east coast, seven joeys have been born.
'Insurance population'
Mr Englefield calls them the "insurance population" and believes if their numbers increase while the wild diseased devils die out, predicted to be in the next 20-50 years, or a vaccine is found, the species can be saved.
The Devil Facial Tumour Disease is spread by devils biting each other, so Mr Englefield believes the healthy devils are safe while quarantined.
He now has three landowners donating another 180 acres of Tasmanian land and says $5 million would ensure the devil is saved.
"If I had that money available to the Devil Island project, we would have a secure insurance population," he says.
"But trying to get the money to even build another three has been a heck of a fight and that's all that's stopping us."
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