captive audience

Tasmanian devils are endangered because of a highly communicable facial tumor disease that is killing 80 to 90% of them. It's spread by biting, which devils do during mating, and there is no known treatment or cure. So there are intensive efforts to breed healthy devils and protect them in the one area of Tasmania where the disease has not reached.

Unzoo is a sanctuary for retired devils to live out their remaining years in peace. Entrance fees contribute to educational efforts. Marsupials typically raise up to 12 children in their lifetimes.

Female devils give birth to up to 40 babies at a time, each the size of a jelly bean. 4 lucky babies latch on to teats inside her pouch. She eats the rest of them. By contrast, kangaroos raise one joey at a time for a whole year.

Look at that jaw! Devils are carnivorous, eating the corpses of dead animals. Their teeth can crunch through a human bone "like a carrot," our guide said.

They are more active at night. Lots of roads here have lower speed limits from dusk till dawn.

So slow down and think of the wallabies and pademelons. 

Unzoo is a concept sanctuary, designed to give the animals maximum freedom in natural habitats. I liked this exhibit (though I'd have liked it more if the human in a cage hadn't been a naked sexualized woman).

In many ways Tasmania reminds me of New Zealand. It's at a similar latitude. I thought these might be ponga ferns but they are Antarctic ferns aka man ferns. The trees are different too; you've never seen such tall eucalyptus. 

After the devil feeding, we followed our guide to the rosellas. They were happy to eat seeds out of our hands and land on people's heads.

Our final stop was the kangaroos, who share a huge area with some very attractive and rare Cape Barren geese.

 They saw us and came hopping over.

This mom has a joey in her pouch.

This little girl was just the right height that the animals treated her like one of the herd.

I gave up on trying to take a selfie while feeding a kangaroo…

Glad I skipped that wallaby burrito at the museum.

If you'd like to read more about animals and their keepers, this is a heartbreaking story about chimpanzees raised in captivity and used for medical research that were released onto an island in Liberia and left to starve. Except one determined man who knew them refused to leave the chimps to fend for themselves. He is still looking after them.

***

Every now and then the sun comes out. This could be Marin.

It's a little greener.

I hear it's raining back home.

Here it's almost summer.

 

This weekend I'll be exploring the historic park at Port Arthur, the last surviving prison colony. So incongruous, to be drinking local wine and petting kangaroos on a site where for hundreds of years people were imprisoned.

I pulled out into one of the nearby coves, in search of wildlife. Oh, well. The quandary of the traveler, who wants to be first to discover each new place.