OTR: Taranna … Tas Devil Unzoo

After a crispy fish & chips lunch, we programmed the GPS to take us to a zoo.

Excuse me! Zoo is wrong. We went to an Unzoo … specifically the Tasmanian Devil Unzoo in Taranna.

The concept of an Unzoo is simple. There are no fences or boundaries, so the animals get to come and go freely … except for the devils, of course. All of the other come-as-you-please residents know a good thing … freedom on the one hand … food at specific times of the day should they wish to partake. Most of them seem to do … though there were some no shows today.

The Unzoo is basically an enclave of bushland. For the past 40 years, they have been involved in the conservation of the iconic Tasmanian devils. This has become all the more important because of a highly contagious form of cancer that has taken hold in devil populations in other parts of Tasmania. The population in this part of the island remains cancer-free. There are elaborate tracking methods established to catch any devils that might cross into the area to ensure they are healthy and not carriers of the disease, The hope is that should to worst happen and the cancer decimates the devil population, those at the Unzoo can be released into the wild to help repopulate the species.

We arrived just in time to catch the second half of the Tasmanian Devil presentation … staying with the keeper afterwards to follow her around as she went to feed the eels (uncooperative until we turned to leave); the sea eagle pair that is nesting on the waterfront (also uncooperative, but they did put on a good aerial show); the kangaroos and the Cape Barren geese (cooperative and interactive). And more. At each stop she gave us extensive information about the species being fed, thus fulfilling the promise of educating visitors.

We remained with the keeper to go to the 3:00p Tasmanian Devil feeding to catch the first part of her presentation. So many interesting details about these critters … not enough space or time to share it all. And then did a bit of a DIY wander to spend some quality time with the critters.

We almost skipped the Unzoo … so glad we didn’t. Happy to know that our admission will go towards the conservation of the species.

Leaving the Unzoo, we headed to our hotel in Port Arthur — the The Fox & Hounds. Along the way, we stopped at the Lavender Farm. They were about the close, so we didn’t get to wander around. But no worries. We plan to have breakfast there tomorrow or the next day.Read more