Ok, we expected kangaroos, koalas, and wallabies, but wombats, tazzy devils, bilbies, quolls, yellow bellied gliders, and bettongs. Australia is marsupial mad. Don’t forget the echidnas and the platypus, the two types of mammals that lay eggs! All this isn’t even bringing birds into this.
We have been awash in experiencing Australian wildlife. Our first encounter was with the Moonlit Sanctuary. We ran into a couple kangaroos roaming about at Sapphire Valley Holiday Park which we stayed at on the drive to Sydney. Then we went to Featherdale Wildlife Park and Walkabout Wildlife Park when we were on day trips from Sydney, and while it wasn’t the main focus, Taronga Zoo also had its fair share of Australian wildlife. Our final organised encounter was in Port Macquarie at the Koala Hospital.
Tasmanian devil
Yes, I had heard of the Tasmanian devil before, but the only real image I had of one was the frantic cartoon one:
Our best encounter with the real ones though were two ladies at the Moonlit Sanctuary. Outside of the two rather ominous fangs they have, the actually look really cute and cuddly. It seemed mean to call them devils. The roamed their enclosure, happy and cute… until our guide dropped a bit of meat into the enclosure. At that point it seemed that all Hell had broken loose. The two lady devils started the biggest racket you had ever heard, all over a bit of meat. Chasing each other wildly until the meat was devoured. They weren’t even at one point bright enough to realise there were two pieces of meat available. The simple fact that one had something tasty was grounds enough for the other one to chase after it and attempt to steal it. Maybe upon reflection, there are some commonalities with the cartoon representation!
The biggest problem though is that in the wild, Tasmanian devils are likely to be extinct in the next 15-20 years. This is because they have developed a cancer causing virus which causes death to the animal. There is no immunity or cure for it. The hope though is to actually allow them to go extinct in the wild, in hope that with no carriers, the virus will disappear too. Then they hope to have enough genetic diversity in captivity, that a reintroduction into the wild can occur and the Tasmanian devil can return to the wild cancer free.
Wombat
We had heard the name wombat before, but I don’t think either Simon or I had any concept of what one actually looked like, or even if it was a big or small animal, docile or dangerous. When we first saw them though, they were the cutest little guys you had ever seen. While they can be a small annoyance to farmers, since the love to dig and dig and dig, overall they aren’t a big problem for anyone. They have developed basically an iron clad behind. The mother can use her rear to block the entrance to the den and can take quite a bit of an attack on her posterior to fend off a would be child-thief.
The other interesting thing, which they share with koalas, though it is only the wombats that really benefit from it, is that their pouch faces backwards. For wombats, this makes sense to avoid digging dirt to end up in their pouch, which wouldn’t be so good for the babies!
Kangaroos and Wallabies
Neither Kangaroos or Wallabies seem to be in short supply in Australia. Because they are generally such docile animals, they often roam the wildlife parks as they wish, being picky on if the choose to interact with the guests or not. Also, we have at least seen the grey Kangaroos out grazing on their own, hopping about, though they were clearly not accustomed to humans and stayed at a safe distance.
Kangaroos are like deer are in Europe and North America. I suspect they fit the same roles in the ecosystem. Wallabies would be more like sheep/goats/foxes I suspect. It is interesting how nature finds her way in animals fulfilling those type of roles in the environment.
The most interaction we had directly with kangaroos and wallabies was at the Moonlit Sanctuary, where they ate out of our hands and we could pet them to our hearts content. They didn’t seem to mind the attention too much, they were getting good food needless to say. The other places we have visited have allowed you to feed them as well, but I suspect they were overfed and were generally disinterested in us humans, even if we had food.
Dingos
Dingos are domesticated Indonesian dogs which have gone wild again. We heard from several people, pure-bred dingos are actually some of the smartest and most “trustworthy” dogs you can find. They claimed that the danger comes from cross-breeding that is occurring with other domesticated dogs, which are producing feral varieties of dogs which intelligence and temperament are often unpredictable. I think I am going to have to try to find a way to convince Simon that a dingo is not a good family pet though, because I think he fell in love with them. He has always wanted a wolf. I have to admit, the ones we have seen (and even petted) do seem like super intelligent dogs, which might be a bit more aloof then the typical domesticated dog which is wholly dependent upon its human mater.
Birds, Birds and Big Birds
While New Zealand is known as a bird paradise, we got to see a lot of strange and interesting birds on Australia. One of the most interesting things is you what you get used to simply doesn’t phase you anymore, but seeing certain animals where you wouldn’t expect them, surprises you. The ibis is such a bird. We heard it referred to as a “rat with wings” a number of times and inner city ibises have little to no fear of humans and will just pick through whatever rubbish there is. Of course, seeing a rather large bird, coming up to you, hoping you will drop something, is rather shocking to us outsiders though.
There were lots of animals we couldn’t easily spot in nature but encountered in the parks. The frog mouthed owl is an example of what is a beautiful bird, but no chance in us getting a shot of them outside a preserve.
We did see a few golden egrets in the wild, though really difficult to get a picture of, especially if you aren’t ready. We had to resort to nature parks to get some pictures.
We couldn’t see kookaburras, but man, could we hear them. Whenever we stayed outside of a city centre, we were woken up by them, laughing their little evil heads off. Simon had a vision of a cute little bird, with a soft laugh, but in real life, wow, it is certainly more of a witches cackle than a laugh!
Australia is the land of the big birds too… First the big dumb bird, the emu. Basically a walking haystack with legs. They seem to think as slow as they move.
On the other hand, the cassowary impresses. Look into its eyes and you will swear it is trying to figure out how to overthrow or eat you. Allegedly, fairly closely related to the velociraptor, they will make you firmly believe that birds are dinosaurs (which they are!)
Koalas
Koalas are cute, that is for sure. They also look cuddly, though on in Queensland is it actually legal to cuddle a koala. The other states in Australia feel it is just a bit too much pressure on the animals. Clearly for Australian wildlife parks, koalas are the main event. We got to see koalas at every place we stopped, though likely the most informative and best for the koalas was the Koala Hospital. It was the first koala hospital, founded back in 1973, to deal with injured koalas, mostly hoping to reintroduce them into the wild. They give free guided walks through the hospital at 3PM daily, and it was a great experience.
While their focus in on rehabilitation, they have a few long term residents, who for various reasons, cannot be reintroduced into the wild. These are the ones you get to meet in their enclosures as you walk about the park. The volunteers guiding you provide all sorts of details about each koala, but also koalas in general. Koalas are more closely related to wombats then the other marsupials and while they spend most of their lives, upright in trees, their pouches face backwards due to this adaption millions of years ago. They also, like most marsupials, have a really short gestation period of 29 days before the baby crawls its way into the pouch.
Of the 160 species of gum trees/eucalyptus trees in New Zealand, a koalas only eat about 30 different varieties and even then, where the koala was born will further limit the varieties to 6 or so. This is because eucalyptus is poisonous and difficult to digest and the mother has a special type of feces she feeds her young which will provide the right gut biome in order to be able to digest the eucalyptus. All a bit disgusting, but I guess that is what happens when you live on an isolated continent for millions of years with no one to tell you you are doing it wrong.
Some of the places we visited let us get a bit closer to the koalas. They are basically placed in trees and given eucalyptus to munch on and basically nap and otherwise lay about until they get tired of having their picture taken and get to go back to their enclosure, be that 5 minutes or 30 minutes. The koala is in charge. The staff seemed to have learned and the tree they go onto for photos, swivels. Just before Simon and I had our pictures taken with one of them, he decided to turn around, only to be swiveled around and then he turned around again. Finally a nice gentle turn around got him in a rather photogenic position. You almost wonder if the koalas know this and just like to annoy the keepers!
At the Moonlit sanctuary, we got to see the koalas being far more active, it being during the evening after dark. The two females they had were super active, with one of them actually scuttling around her enclosure visiting folks and being rather a jolly lady. As well as there were two males, one who gave a rather lengthy and loud call, making a huge racket as we approached. The guide told us that he had recently mated and that male koalas do like to express themselves loudly after they have “scored”.
In the wild females will keep a particular territory of trees and about 6-8 female territories will be serviced by a single alpha male. Koalas have a scent gland in the middle of their chest, which is how they mark their territory. At about 12-18 months, young males get rejected by the community and have to go off to find their own set of females to try to mate with. This is often when koalas get hit by cars, because they are young, been turned out by their mothers and clearly don’t know what they are doing.
Everything else
Really, there is so much Australian wildlife that it would take post after post to cover it off. Clicking on the picture below will bring you to Flikr to be able to see an album of lots of Australian wildlife!
