the devil population on the peninsula decreased dramatically. in march 2003 nick mooney wrote a memo to be circulated within the parks and wildlife services calling for more funding to study the disease, but the call for funding was edited out before the memo was presented to bryan green, then tasmania's minister for primary industries, water and environment. in april 2003, a working group was formed by the tasmanian government to respond to the disease. in september 2003, nick mooney went to the tasmanian daily newspaper "the mercury", informing the general public of the disease and proposing a quarantine of healthy tasmanian devils. at the time, it was thought that a retrovirus was a possible cause. david chadwick of the state animal health laboratory said that the laboratory did not have the resources needed to research the possibility of a retrovirus. the tasmanian conservation trust criticised the tasmanian government for providing insufficient funds for research and suggested that dftd could be zoonotic, posing a threat to livestock and humans. on 14 october 2003, a workshop was held in launceston. in 2004, kathryn medlock found three oddly shaped devil skulls in european museums and found a description of a devil in london zoo dying, which showed a similarity to dftd.