Caversham Wildlife Park A short half-hour drive north-east of Perth is Whiteman Park, almost 4,000 hectares of natural bushland consisting of some eucalypts, banksia, grass tree, paperbark and other small shrubs adapted to growing in sand. But this is also a recreational park containing a village with manicured lawns and picnic areas, walking and cycling trails, dog exercising areas, a tractor museum, car museum, art gallery, pottery shop, lolly shop, handicraft centre, cafe, tennis courts etc. And in one corner is the Caversham Wildlife Park. The brochures I had seen for Caversham displayed images of people in contact with the animals - holding wombats, feeding roos and wallabies, patting koalas - and promoting Molly's Farm, with images of farm animals, shearing etc. So I had some idea of what to expect, and my expectations weren't high. I imagined this would be a small working farm with a few enclosures with some common natives, an aviary with some common cage birds, and a paddock or two for some macropods. But I was wrong. I spent four hours at the park and was very impressed. Privately owned and run they have an impressive collection of Australian fauna, with a more diverse bird collection than most of the major zoos in Australia. The paths are thickly planted and lush, as are many of the enclosures, resulting in a cool shady environment which is in contrast to the hot dry environment throughout most of Whiteman Park. The eastern quarter of the park is Molly's Farm, and it's a typical small farm with lots of farm animals most of which the public can come in contact with - sheep, goats, cows, horses, chickens, geese, rabbits, guinea pigs, alpacas, and a llama. They also had fancy doves, guineafowl and a pair of ostriches. The rest of the park was all native wildlife. In the centre is a large walkthrough macropod enclosure with Red and Western Grey Kangaroos, and Agile Wallabies. Around this central enclosure are four zones displaying the fauna of that zone - North-eastern Australia, the South-west, North-west and South-east. And there's also a small but modern Reptile House. Although the Wildlife Park was moved here in 2003, very few of the enclosures look old. There are some very new enclosures that have been well-planted but the plants haven't yet established and really started to grow, and there are new aviaries nearing completion and a new penguin enclosure which looks almost complete. And these exhibits are not small; like many of the existing enclosures they are quite sizable and give the occupants adequate space. I had a very enjoyable time wandering the grounds; with its narrow winding paths and many enclosures/aviaries, it reminded me of Featherdale or Gorge. My only criticism would be that some of the signage needs to be updated, although probably only a pedant like myself (and a few other ZooChatters) would notice, with one exception - a label for Kori Bustard on the Australian Bustard aviary. If you ever find yourself in Perth, do yourself a favour and make the effort to visit - I think you'll be as suitably impressed as I was. Hix For the record (and because Chlidonias likes to add to his lists) I'm including a full listing of all the wildlife on display with the exception of the Farm. I compiled this list by photographing every label on every enclosure, and photographing anything I saw in an enclosure that wasn't labelled (although I usually saw the mammal or bird in another enclosure as well, this time with a label). Reptiles - all in the Reptile House unless noted as 'outside' 1. Splendid Tree Frog 2. Green Tree Frog 3. Macquarie Turtle - outside 4. Northern Red-faced Turtle 5. Plate-shelled Turtle - outside 6. Northern Spiny-tail Gecko 7. Banded Knob-tailed Gecko 8. Central Bearded Dragon 9. Boyd's Forest Dragon 10. Frilled Dragon 11. Eastern Water Dragon - outside 12. Ridge-tailed Monitor 13. Merten's Water Monitor 14. Lace Monitor - outside 15. Perentie - outside 16. Northern Bluetongue Skink 17. Centralian Bluetongue Skink 18. Blotched Bluetongue Skink 19. Shingleback Skink 20. Olive Python 21. Stimson's Python 22. Water Python 23. Black-headed Python 24. Woma 25. South-west Carpet Python 26. Brown Tree Snake 27. Death Adder 28. Johnstone's Crocodile - outside Mammals 1. Echidna 2. Long-nose Potoroo 3. Rufous Bettong 4. Brushtail Bettong 5. Red-necked Pademelon 6. Red-bellied Pademelon 7. Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby 8. Northern Nailtail Wallaby 9. Quokka 10. Parma Wallaby 11. Tammar (Dama) Wallaby 12. Agile Wallaby 13. Bennett's Wallaby 14. Swamp Wallaby 15. Western Grey Kangaroo 16. Red Kangaroo 17. Wallaroo 18. Southern Brown Bandicoot 19. Squirrel Glider 20. Sugar Glider 21. Brushtail Possum (all those I saw were the golden Tasmanian variety) 22. Common Wombat 23. Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat 24. Koala (at least 18) 25. Spotted-tail Quoll 26. Tasmanian Devil 27. Spectacled Fruit Bat 28. Black Fruit Bat 29. Grey-headed Fruit Bat 30. Red Fox 31. Dingo Birds 1. Ostrich (in the Farm) 2. Southern Cassowary 3. Emu 4. Black Swan 5. Cape Barren Goose 6. Australian Shelduck 7. Hardhead 8. Black Duck 9. Blue-billed Duck 10. Chestnut Teal 11. Radjah (Burdekin) Duck 12. Plumed Whistling Duck 13. Magpie Goose 14. White-faced Heron 15. Cattle Egret 16. Nankeen Night Heron 17. Glossy Ibis 18. Buff-banded Rail 19. Bush Thick-knee 20. Black-winged Stilt 21. Masked Lapwing (with chicks in two separate enclosures) 22. Banded Lapwing 23. Crested Tern 24. Golden Pheasant 25. Brown Quail 26. Black-breasted Button Quail (not labelled, but glimpsed a pair in an aviary) 27. Australian Bustard (1.4) 28. Australian Brush Turkey 29. Black-breasted Buzzard 30. Wedgetail Eagle 31. Nankeen Kestrel 32. Southern Boobook Owl 33. Masked Owl 34. Lesser Sooty Owl 35. Barking Owl 36. Grass Owl 37. Barn Owl 38. Tawny Frogmouth 39. Crested Pigeon 40. Common Bronzewing 41. Flock Bronzewing 42. Wonga Pigeon 43. Torres Strait Imperial Pigeon 44. White-headed Pigeon 45. Emerald Dove 46. Rose-crowned Fruit Dove 47. Superb Fruit Dove 48. Diamond Dove 49. Peaceful Dove 50. Bar-shouldered Dove 51. Spotted Turtle Dove 52. Rainbow Lorikeet 53. Red-collared Lorikeet 54. Musk Lorikeet 55. Purple-crowned Lorikeet 56. Varied Lorikeet 57. Elegant Parrot 58. Scarlet-chested Parrot 59. Western Rosella 60. Port Lincoln Ringneck Parrot 61. Regent Parrot 62. Superb Parrot 63. Princess Parrot 64. Budgerigar 65. Red-capped Parrot 66. Eclectus Parrot 67. Cockatiel 68. Little Corella 69. Sulphur-crested Cockatoo 70. Galah 71. Pink Cockatoo (aka Major Mitchell or Leadbeater's) 72. Gang Gang Cockatoo 73. White-tailed Black Cockatoo 74. Red-tailed Black Cockatoo 75. Laughing Kooaburra 76. Blue-winged Kookaburra 77. Splendid Fairy-wren 78. White-winged Fairy-wren 79. Yellow-throated Miner 80. Blue-faced Honeyeater 81. Satin Bowerbird 82. White-browed Woodswallow 83. Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike 84. Crimson Finch 85. Masked Finch 86. Star Finch 87. Gouldian Finch 88. Zebra Finch 89. Double-barred Finch 90. Red-browed Firetail Finch 91. Painted Firetail Finch
I wonder whether Caversham ended up with a large chunk of Perth Zoo's bird collection with the closure of the 'World of Birds' area. Very impressive collection.
Great review, Hix, I agree completely with your comments. What is interesting to note is that on my visit in July 2016, the collection was even larger with about 20 more birds and 10 more mammals. That list can be seen here: Caversham Wildlife Park On Show Species List, July 2016 if anyone is interested.