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Spots this term are filling up fast for our animal ambassadors to come out to you for an educational talk. So if your school, kindergarten or community group would like to meet some of our native animals and learn about them, call now to guarantee your spot this term. Schools can also visit us on site and tie in a visit with the Urrbrae Wetland and Learning Centre for a variety of educational activities.
Here is one of our Fat Tailed Dunnarts with her 2 little joeys, dunnarts are small members of the dasyurid family which are carnivorous marsupials. While the Fat Tailed Dunnart is still common their close relative the Kangaroo Island Dunnart has been impacted by the recent bush fires. Luckily there is some great work being done by different groups to help conserve their remaining habitat and protect the remaining dunnarts. See Kangaroo Island Land for Wildlife for more information.
Little Milly here is a Ringtail Possum so natural foods like gum leaves and blossoms are a really important part of her diet. Luckily she doesn’t take much convincing to eat her greens because they’re her favourite part of any meal.
Another domestic species we use to educate is the Guinea Pig. Here in Australia they are considered a cute and cuddly pet, whereas where they originate in South America they are considered a food source for many people. I don't know about you but I much prefer my Guinea Pigs doing zoomies rather than on a plate but it demonstrates how different cultures place different values on animals.
The Nature Education Centre has many native animals to help us educate with but we do have a few domestics like Topsy here. Domestic animals are generally simpler to care for and are often more interactive which makes them a great way to teach young children about responsibility of care and empathy for other living things. Topsy definitely doesn’t complain about all the cuddles and fresh veggies she gets visiting schools and kindergartens around Adelaide 🙂
We would like to thank everyone who came out to be a guinea pig at our first open days! It was a great learning opportunity for us for future events and we raised a total of $110.00 to pass onto SAVEM to help support our wildlife affected by the recent fires. We hope you had a great time too and stay tuned for similar future events!
Well that escalated quickly!
Our mother huntsman guarding her egg sack was seen with her one spiderling one evening and the rest emerged overnight. Interesting to some, nightmare fuel to others spiders are undoubtedly an important part of the ecosystem helping to control other invertebrate numbers and themselves being a food source for many larger animals.