An Australian animal sanctuary is working to improve Tasmanian Devil populations.
Devils@Cradle, near Tasmania's Cradle Mountain, currently have 55 Tasmanian Devils, forming part of a broader national breeding program.
Animal keeper Rory Burton said the sanctuary were currently halfway through the breeding season.
"In the next week or two, we've got a lot of pouches to look at," he said.
"Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks, we can confirm that we've got the next generation of little devil Joey's coming along."
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Mr Burton said they were hoping to have between 10 and 12 extra devils.
"The devils can up to four joeys each time they breed. At the moment, those joeys are probably going to be the size of a grain of rice. So, we're expecting to find a tic-tac in mummy's pouch."
"After a week or two, they probably would have quadrupled in size over that period of time."
Mr Burton said after nine months, the joeys are then kept in an enclosure with their siblings.
"Once they are big enough, we'll have a group of all the joeys from the same year in the one enclosure.
"It's not until they're about two years of age that they can actually interact with other devils. Up until then, the bigger devils would be a threat to the younger devils."
Mr Burton said a female Tasmanian Devil would breed three times in their life.
"The females breed at two years, then again at three and four years of age.
"They can only breed in autumn, and once they've bred and had their 21-day gestation, they are often raising the joeys. It's a very quick cycle."
Mr Burton said it only released devils into the wild every couple of years because of facial tumour disease.
"Our devils are quarantined. They are not immune. If our devils were to go out at Cradle Mountain, they'd probably catch that cancer and then die from it.
"The only time we've released devils to the wild is in disease-free areas, like Maria Island.
Having worked at Devils@Cradle for four years, Mr Burton said the plight of the Tasmanian Devils had improved dramatically.
"Four years ago, devils were crashing, and it looked like they were going to go extinct in the wild within this decade.
"Today, we are seeing that they've stopped declining. We're seeing that there are a few devils showing up in places where they haven't been seen for a little while.
"Also, on top of that, there's work on the vaccination as well.
"We're actually seeing a lot of positive signs coming out from the breeding program in the last three or four years, which is really encouraging."
