Travel > Travel Guides > Tasmania > Tasmanian Devil Park

Tasmanian Devil Park

- by Bettina James

Things to do > Tasmania > Port Arthur > Salamanca Place > Wineglass Bay & Freycinet Peninsula > Barilla Bay Oyster > Tasmanian Devil Park > Tahune Air Walk > Tahune Eagle Glide > Hastings Caves and Thermal Springs > Sea Kayaking

The Tasmanian Devil Park was surprisingly fun and educational, but not educational in a bad school excursion way. If you are not entirely into animals, you still might like it. I am not a huge animal fan, but I still liked seeing those little overgrown ratty looking creatures trotting around. Let’s face it; they are not a cuddly type animal. They are rather barbaric and have unattractive faces. If you’re into unattractive faces, you may call them cute. Their size might be cute, but the Tassie devil itself, not so cute.

Things you will see at this farm, aside from the Tasmanian devil, are possums, various birds including a “Kings of the Wind free-flight raptor show” on once a day, rescued eagles, falcons and hawks, and you can even pet the kangaroos if you don’t scare them away. I always thought they had soft fur like thick cashmere, but it’s coarse and wiry. Good to know I was deluded for a long time, at least I know now. You can also hand feed the kangaroos at 2.30pm each day.

This lovely meat eating marsupial is only found on the island of Tasmania. Right now, the Tassie devil is being threatened by a mysterious facial cancer. It is now official a “threatened specie”. The cancer usually kills the animal five to six months after contraction and is fatal in most cases. Although there is research being conducted by the universities and the government, the numbers of Tassie devils has dropped dramatically in the past three to five years.

The Tassie Devils

At the farm, there are three or four enclosures with up to four devils in each. At the time we visited, there was one with babies sleeping all huddled together. The Tassie Devil is a nocturnal animal, so feeding time during the day is when they are most active. We arrived in the early morning for the first feeding, and it was amazing to see their dish like ears, anime eyes and prickly whiskers in action.

The Tassie devil is part of the marsupial family, the same as koala and kangaroo. There are four feeding times during the day and they are usually given some type of meat, like a chicken carcass and share it amongst the inhabitants of the enclosure. You can hear them crunching on the bones, and snarling and hissing at each other, so they can steal un-devoured pieces from their enclosure mates. We saw the enclosure with two Tassie devils have a tug of war. One had all the food, and the other was chasing it around and around in circles for a good ten minutes. Then, the one with the food went into a corner, and tried to swallow as much food as it could, before the other could get there. They hissed and snarled a little more and the other one finally got some

The Cafe

The café is a great place to wait if you’ve come a bit early for the feeding. The food is very good and is Tasmanian gourmet. They are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and have a wide variety of wines and gourmet spreads and sauces. You might want to wait until you get to Salamanca market to get your gourmet foods, as they are much cheaper if you’re buying directly from the producer. And the coffee isn’t too bad either.