Favourite Tasmania Zoo
- Thread starter nanoboy
- Start date
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
Hi guys, thanks for all the suggestions. 
Here is a brief summary of our Tassie trip.
Trowunna Wildlife Park
Patted a Tasmanian Devil, and cuddled a wombat. The park itself is a bit run-down with no signage, and just a handful of animals (quolls, pademelons, wallabies, kangaroos, wedge tail eagles, a few parrots, a koala), but at least we got some free animal encounters. I would recommend it only if you are in the area (we chose the wildlife park over the Mole Creek caves just a few km away) or only if you never cuddled a wombat.
Zoo Doo Wildlife Park
Awesome experience. They do not have very many animals, but they really make do with what they have. There are a few lion feeds per day (white lions, by the way) and the keeper (owner?) goes in and interacts with the big male and female, and the enclosure makes viewing easy. Then there is the hourly 'safari' where you drive around the park in an open-air vehicle and hand-feed emus, ostriches, and camels. There is also a paddock where you can feed deer, wallabies, kangaroos, geese, and emus.
Although it is not advertised on the website, you can pay for an animal encounter with the marmosets or black cockatoos. We opted for the marmoset encounter, and were just about to swipe the credit card, when the head keeper (owner?) came and said that they had already been fed, but he would let us in the enclosure for free for a few minutes! We were quite happy with this arrangement, but the marmosets do not get close to you at all if you do not have food, so we really only got to take some nice pics without the enclosure's mesh in the way.
The other animals that I can recall are a pair of blue and gold macaws, crab eating macaques, the usual native parrots, devils, kangaroos etc, devils, farm animals like sheep and alpacas (in a paddock and in a petting zoo area with some rabbits), and Sumatran tigers. Overall, I highly recommend this zoo if you are in the Hobart area.
Wildlife
We were lucky enough to see a wedge tailed eagle feeding on a dead wallaby at the side of the road near to Cradle Mountain. We later found out that there are only 75 breeding pairs left in Tassie so I guess that it was a special experience. We also saw many wombats feeding on the open plains of Narawantapu Park on the north coast. In the Gog forest near Mount Roland, we stopped and watched a flock of about 100 yellow tailed black cockatoos in the trees above us. I think the saddest part of the trip was the amount of road kill. I counted at least 80 in 4 days (800km), including wallabies, pademelons, stoats (I think), spotted quolls, Tassie devils, wombats, possums, rabbits, currawongs etc. As I read somewhere else (and I agree with 100%) the best way to see wildlife in Tassie, is in a glass-bottomed bus.
Overall, it was a a great trip, and I highly recommend it for those who like nature, wildlife, and wildlife encounters. Pics will be posted soon in the Australia section.
Here is a brief summary of our Tassie trip.
Trowunna Wildlife Park
Patted a Tasmanian Devil, and cuddled a wombat. The park itself is a bit run-down with no signage, and just a handful of animals (quolls, pademelons, wallabies, kangaroos, wedge tail eagles, a few parrots, a koala), but at least we got some free animal encounters. I would recommend it only if you are in the area (we chose the wildlife park over the Mole Creek caves just a few km away) or only if you never cuddled a wombat.
Zoo Doo Wildlife Park
Awesome experience. They do not have very many animals, but they really make do with what they have. There are a few lion feeds per day (white lions, by the way) and the keeper (owner?) goes in and interacts with the big male and female, and the enclosure makes viewing easy. Then there is the hourly 'safari' where you drive around the park in an open-air vehicle and hand-feed emus, ostriches, and camels. There is also a paddock where you can feed deer, wallabies, kangaroos, geese, and emus.
Although it is not advertised on the website, you can pay for an animal encounter with the marmosets or black cockatoos. We opted for the marmoset encounter, and were just about to swipe the credit card, when the head keeper (owner?) came and said that they had already been fed, but he would let us in the enclosure for free for a few minutes! We were quite happy with this arrangement, but the marmosets do not get close to you at all if you do not have food, so we really only got to take some nice pics without the enclosure's mesh in the way.
The other animals that I can recall are a pair of blue and gold macaws, crab eating macaques, the usual native parrots, devils, kangaroos etc, devils, farm animals like sheep and alpacas (in a paddock and in a petting zoo area with some rabbits), and Sumatran tigers. Overall, I highly recommend this zoo if you are in the Hobart area.
Wildlife
We were lucky enough to see a wedge tailed eagle feeding on a dead wallaby at the side of the road near to Cradle Mountain. We later found out that there are only 75 breeding pairs left in Tassie so I guess that it was a special experience. We also saw many wombats feeding on the open plains of Narawantapu Park on the north coast. In the Gog forest near Mount Roland, we stopped and watched a flock of about 100 yellow tailed black cockatoos in the trees above us. I think the saddest part of the trip was the amount of road kill. I counted at least 80 in 4 days (800km), including wallabies, pademelons, stoats (I think), spotted quolls, Tassie devils, wombats, possums, rabbits, currawongs etc. As I read somewhere else (and I agree with 100%) the best way to see wildlife in Tassie, is in a glass-bottomed bus.
Overall, it was a a great trip, and I highly recommend it for those who like nature, wildlife, and wildlife encounters. Pics will be posted soon in the Australia section.
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
Oops. Maybe I misheard the keeper during the talk. Their website does indeed say Bengal.
PAT:
No idea about the macaques!
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
Hmm... on the drive to Hobart's Botanical Gardens, we did pass a really nice gate that said Beaumaris Zoo, but there was nothing there to suggest the zoo was still in operation. According to wikipedia, the zoo closed in 1937.
Judging from the amount of roadkill, I wouldn't be surprised if I passed a dead thylacine in a ditch somewhere.
the grounds are still there, with as nanoboy says a very nice gate (ornate metal sculptures of depressed-looking monkeys, thylacines, etc). From the gate you can see the remains of the polar bear enclosure (about the size of your average lounge). The remains of the thylacine cage are still there as well but you can't see them from the gate (they're over the rise of a hill). I thought I'd put some photos on here somewhere but I may have been mistaken or they've been purged.Baldur said:
The original 'Beaumaris Zoo' was in the grounds of a house (Beaumaris) just off Sandy Bay Road. That had Thylacines too and most of the earlier 'zoo' photographs of them in Tasmania would have been taken there. Nowadays its just a tarmac carpark area.
The 2nd site was on the Domain- as described by Chlidonias above. I have walked around the perimeter of the derelict site which is quite interesting if you are madly interested in Thylacines (which I am..
)That's where the last one died obviously.Someone above mentioned the volume of Road Kills in Tasmania- nothing has evidently changed much then. It is one reason cited why Thylacines must be extinct, as none have ever been produced as a roadkill.