Who goes where?: Tasmanian Devils

A visit to ZooDoo was our first opportunity to see some native Tazmanian animals up close. In particular we were keen to see some Tasmania Devils and wombats. Chris found the Tasmanian Devils quite cute despite their scarred faces. They are the worlds largest carnivorous marsupial. The Devils had been close to extinction in Tasmania due to a contagious facial tumour disease. Following a programme of seclusion of healthy Devils they are now making a slow recovery in numbers. Some of the Devils we saw had facial scars which were as a result from fighting amongst the territorial males.

I was enthralled by the blue macaw parrots. The keeper kindly let Ella and I feed them, but we weren't to tell anyone! I was surprised to learn that birds don't have any taste buds, so the macaws enjoyed sweet corn, walnuts and red chillies.

We fed some White Lions slices of beef. The White Lions are now extinct in the wild, but once roamed right across sub-Saharan Africa. We weren't sure why the Lions and othernon-native species were here, they seemed to be completely out of place in this mainly Aussie wildlife park.

We also fed Emus and Ostriches breadcrumbs from a plastic cup. The mouth of the beaker was smaller than these big birds' beaks so they sometimes pecked the hand holding the cup. I'd always been a bit wary of these big birds, but their peck was not too harsh, and I'm quite fond of them now! I can't say that Ella felt the same way though as she tried to stay well away from the Emus and Ostriches, which is difficult with their long necks!.

Rarrrrrrr - cute?

Ugly?

Cute!

Just chilling in the shade

A bit of a slowcoach - Koalas spend up to 20 hours a day asleep, 3 hours eating and less than 1 hour moving. Their diet is so low in nutritional value that they must conserve energy constantly