Bonorong Wildlife Park

Saturday May 13th – We started the day by going to the famous Salamanca Market. This is an open air market not unlike the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne but with more local artisans and higher quality products. The market is pretty big and runs every Saturday throughout the year. We wandered around for several hours before grabbing a bite to eat and heading to our next activity.
We had booked another B&B in a historic town called Richmond and along the way stopped at the Bonorong Wildlife Park in a small town called Brighton. This park primarily houses animals native to Tasmania and functions as a wildlife rehabilitation and education center. It was fantastic! It is a small park but very well kept with knowledgeable and caring keepers. One of the keepers, Greg, took a small group of us on a tour of the park feeding each set of animals along the way.
The first stop was the Tasmanian devil enclosure and I just about fell over when Greg hopped into the enclosure with the devils! According to him Tasmanian Devils are very misunderstood animals, they are not ferocious, vicious animals but actually fairly docile. He was cautious with his interactions with the three devils crowding around his feet but he did reach down and give one of them a scratch on its rump which it seemed to enjoy very much. During the time he was in the enclosure chatting with us the devils milled around his feet occasionally emitting horrible growling/screeching noises at each other and baring their teeth. Greg explained this was the manner that they communicated with each other and while it sounded very aggressive and fierce it was mostly about bluffing each other. Even when they appear to bite each other they are generally just mouthing and they don’t actually bite down.
Tasmanian devils are the world’s largest surviving carnivorous marsupials. Marsupials are animals where the female has a pouch that the baby is reared in from infancy. Common marsupials include kangaroos, opossums, koalas, and wombats to name a few. There are about 334 species of marsupials, over 200 of them native to Australia. Devils are nocturnal scavengers. They use their incredible sense of smell to locate and feed on carcasses of a variety of animals and therefore perform an important role in the food chain. They often eat road kill and many die as a result of being hit by cars while feeding on the road kill.
Devils are not very fast (about the speed of a chicken) and have poor eyesight. Because they rely on bluffing rather than actually fighting they are often killed by dogs. Greg explained that a dog as small as a West Highland Terrier can easily kill a Tazzie devil. When cornered by a dog they will display their teeth, growl, and mouth the dog, not inflicting a lot of damage or protecting themselves.
The newest and more disturbing cause of death is a new type of facial cancer that is sweeping through the devil population. Mortality rate is high and researchers are working hard at finding out all they can to stop the spread of the disease. Some of the wildlife parks are creating captive breeding programs of the non infected devils.
Later in the tour Greg went into another devil enclosure, the home of Gunther, an unusually aggressive devil. Greg has been working with this nasty guy and is trying to establish dominance over him. It was quite a show as Gunther charged Greg repeatedly, screaming and showing his teeth. Greg would hold his ground hissing back and raising his booted foot in a threatening way, the two of them continued this odd “dance” for a few minutes with Greg occasionally giving Gunther a light bump on the nose with his boot when he got too close. When Gunther began to calm down Greg pulled out a hunk of some kind of meat and dangled it in the air. Gunther leaped up and grabbed it, with Greg still holding it, and the two then had a nice little game of tug of war with the meat. The whole time this was happening Greg was chatting away to us explaining what he was doing. Sue got some spectacular video footage of the whole thing.

The whole tour was really good, with Greg telling us about each animal and how it came to be at the park (most had been injured and where being rehabilitated for release). I got to hand feed an Emu, pet a koala, and Greg taught us the kangaroo’s favorite spot to get a scratch, under the chest. When you scratch a ‘roo there they do a funny blissful dance, swinging their heads from side to side and melting into your hand. I saw a kookaburra and one of

my new favorite birds here in Australia, the Tawny Frogmouth.
With their nocturnal habit and owl-like appearance, Tawny Frogmouths are often confused with owls, but are actually more closely related to the nightjars. During the day, the Tawny Frogmouth perches on a tree branch, often low down, camouflaged as part of the tree. The bulk of the Tawny Frogmouth's diet is made up of nocturnal insects, worms, slugs and snails. Small mammals, reptiles, frogs and birds are also eaten. Most food is obtained by pouncing to the ground from a tree or other elevated perch. Some prey items, such as moths, are caught in flight, which has led to many unfortunate instances of birds being hit by cars while chasing insects illuminated in the beam of the headlights.
I guess I've gone on long enough! More on Tasmania in the next blog.