Saturday, 21st April

Following Lizzie Corke’s excellent presentation regarding the Tiger Quoll Flagship Program at our Annual General Meeting in February, an excited group of 27 people came together for the promised visit to the Centre for Conservation Ecology.

It was one of those magical autumn days and a great one for driving along the Great Ocean Road with tremendous coastal views, and in other places vistas of tree ferns and majestic eucalypts lining the roadway.

Having stopped for morning tea at Kennett River where we were entertained by Black Ducks and Wood Ducks, we reached the Ecology Centre at about 11.30am where we were met by our hosts Lizzie Corke , Shayne Neale and their three-year old daughter Tess.

We first visited the marsupial nursery where we observed a young Eastern Grey Kangaroo being bottle fed, a small Black Wallaby and two orphaned koalas.  The injured or orphaned animals are cared for in the nursery until they are strong enough to return to the wild.

Lizzie and Shayne then took us for a walk through the property until we finally arrived at the great enclosure that Shayne has built to provide a safe and stimulating environment for their three Tiger Quolls.  These animals have been brought into the Centre to enable people to observe the creatures and learn about their behaviour and their needs.

They intend breeding this year from the male and female that have been brought to the Centre from different parts of Australia so that they are genetically suitable for breeding. The Quolls are now three years old, and Lizzie and Shayne hope that they will have a successful breeding season. Quolls usually mate in May with the young being born in June. It is an exciting time for the Centre.

We thank Lizzie and Shayne very much for sharing their exciting program with us.

We will let you know the results of the breeding program.

Margaret MacDonald