Great articles! Moonlit Sanctuary is on our list to visit in the near future. What sort of animal interaction can we expect if we did the $200/couple tour? Thanks.
You will directly interact with koala, barking owl, squirrel glider, southern bettong, long-nosed potoroo, tawny frogmouth, plus a number of other species that you will get close to.
That sounds awesome. There are a few pics on the websites with possums (?) and sugar gliders (?) on someone's shoulder, and a tawny frogmouth (?) on someone's arm. Any chance of actually getting to 'touch' the animals like that?
Yes the animals I mentioned are the ones that you get to "touch" one way or another. That is what I took to be experience! Plus you see others eg devils and so on... (oh and quite a number of wallabies etc...)
Excellent. I was not sure whether the keeper holds on to the animals and visitors merely pat them, or whether visitors actually get to hold them, or whether it was a case of the keeper saying "and in this enclosure we have a pademelon. Pademelons are usually found in ....." Thanks for that. See you soon then.
Of course everything relies on the animals. We take our animal welfare obligations seriously, if the animal does not want to participate bad luck for that day. Not that that happens often. But I do have to say that red-bellied pademelons, even hand reared animals, are one species that never come up to visitors. It is strange as I have fed wild pademelons in Tasmania!
@nanoboy, there's a couple of youtube videos linked on the first page of this thread so you can see some of what goes on. (Or put "Moonlit Sanctuary" into Youtube and there's a few videos there, although most are filmed on day visits)
MRJ, thanks for the info. I am off to Tasmania over the Easter vacation, funnily enough. I want to see the wombats at Narawntapu Park in particular. Any advice on where or what to feed the pademelons? Any advice from anyone on where to get some great wildlife spotting, or any particular wildlife parks are worth a visit? Chlidonias, thanks for the heads up. Yeah, I really should have checked the earlier posts and saved us all some grief. Haha. Cheers!
Narawntapu is the best place in Tasmania for wildlife, its fantastic. Wombats, pademelons, Bennett's wallabies, echidnas etc all over the show. Quolls and devils at night if you're lucky (though the devils are tricky, got to put in the hours). My second favourite spot is Maria Island. You can stay overnight in the old penitentiary. Loads of Tasmanian native hens, Cape Barren geese, echidnas and all the usuals. Hooded plovers on the beaches, little blue penguins at night. Most people go to Bruny Island which isn't far from Hobart. There's a colony of white wallabies there. This might help as well: mammal watching in Tasmania
You should get a few Emus on Maria too and also I saw White-Bellied Sea Eagles every day when I was there. MRJ I'm embarrased to say I haven't ventured down to Pearcedale yet - but I'll have to in the next couple of months.
the wildlife service removed the emus in the 1990s (they were introduced to the island originally) so there shouldn't be any left now
Thanks for the info, Chlidonias. The website was very useful. Wildlife spotting is now sorted, more or less I think. Any zoos or wildlife parks are worth the visit in Tasmania?
have a look on the sticky at the top of the Australia forum. It lists all (or at least most) of the Australian zoos etc. Off the top of my head Zoo-Doo is right by Hobart, and Tasmania Zoo is up at Launceston. Both have exotic zoo animals (eg tigers and white lions at Zoo-Doo) as well as natives. Near Launceston at Beauty Point is Seahorse World specialising in seahorses and pipefish and Platypus House which has platypus and echidna (these two places are right next to each other)
Thanks Chlidonias. I use the list all the time! In fact, I had already had a look at all the Tasmanian zoos' websites. I thought maybe there were a few posters who had been to a few and might have advised that "you must visit zoo X, as you get to cuddle a wombat and interact with tame parrots" etc. or "don't visit zoo Y as the website is misleading" or "you MUST visit zoo Z because they have a lot of wildlife encounters such as..." etc.
Hi MRJ, I am considering visiting Moonlit this weekend, and I'm wondering how up-to-date the above list is. Do you still have orange-footed scrub fowl and owlet-nightjar? Are the nocturnal species viewable during the day (in a nocturnal house?) or do you have to do the evening tour to see them? Are there any new, unusual species (reptile, bird or mammal)? Cheers.
Dude! You'll see everything in Victoria in your first month here! I have never been to Moonlit yet, but I have heard good things, especially about their conservation programs.
And thats a bad thing why? It gives me more time to see zoos in other states. And go back to the Vic ones to see species that I missed. I've heard good things about Moonlit too, and its location is quite handy, so thats why I'm keen to visit now.
That's a great way to approach it, come to think of it! Knock off the locals first to create space for the out of state ones. What's the big zoo plans for Easter holiday? I plan to head down to Werribee one day.
