Caversham Wildlife Park

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Caversham Wildlife Park is quite a large zoo located a bit of a way North-east of Perth but still within the Perth suburbs. The zoo almost exclusively holds Australian native animals, and has a rather impressive species list with not too far below 200 species. I was particularly impressed at the diversity of native bird species held.



The zoo is located within Whiteman Park which is a large recreational park with lots of bushland and lots of wild Western Grey Kangaroos which can be seen easily on the drive up to the zoo. I believe there are lots of birding opportunities in the park as well, but I didn’t actually have time to spend birding because the zoo does take quite a few hours to see thoroughly and is a bit of a drive from Perth. I did spend a bit of time watching a very bold Scarlet Robin hopping around the Tasmanian Devil enclosure though, as well as a wild Buff-banded Rail.

The zoo is roughly divided into six main sections with a few other exhibits along the paths between the sections. These sections are a large mixed kangaroo walkthrough, a large domestics section, and four sections that are geographical parts of Australia – North-east, South-west, South-east, and North, with wildlife from those areas. Outside of these sections there is a reptile house, a large u-shape of bird aviaries, 'Meet the Wombats and Friends' show, and a couple of small aviaries dotted around.

Just outside the entrance to the zoo is a large aviary with no signage on it but seemed to just be full of Diamond Doves with a couple of pheasants on the ground – Golden Pheasant and Swinhoe’s Pheasant, and a Luzon Bleeding-heart Dove. My parents dropped me off at the entrance which allowed me to do the zoo by myself at my own pace and, picked me up later when I was done. Upon entering are a couple of pretty standard aviaries for Grass Owl and Laughing Kookaburra, and after looking at those I continued to the first geographical section of the zoo, the North East Section.

The first aviary has Rainbow Lorikeets, Masked Lapwings and Eclectus Parrots, and most interestingly, a Satin Bowerbird that was building a bower. After that are a couple of paddocks with Southern Cassowary, however while I was looking at the cassowary I heard something rustle in the bushes in front. After a little while, and once other noisy people had left, I saw a Buff-banded Rail emerge from the bush and walk into the paddock and behind it followed a little fluffy black chick! The adult and chick wandered around the cassowary paddock a bit, with the adult pecking for food to give to the chick, and darted in and out of bushes, then they disappeared into some other bushes and didn’t come out again. But that was still a pretty cool sighting.

Continuing on with the actual zoo review, I then passed through a large walkthrough aviary, still in the North East Section with birds from that part of Australia, and continued through it, still within the same section. Further around there were a couple of enclosures for wallabies on one side of the path for Bennett’s and Swamp Wallabies, the former obviously not appropriate for that section and it would have probably been nice to have Agile Wallabies or something else there, but never mind. And on the opposite side of the path were a couple of aviaries, one for Spectacled Flying Foxes and a few more for a few different birds. There was also a large Lace Monitor enclosure and an enclosure for Koalas and Red-necked Pademelons, the latter possibly not in the correct geographical area but I suppose North-east and South-east are subjective so the Pademelons could be in either. There were also some Magpie Geese in an un-covered grassy area, as well as an enclosure for Squirrel gliders, and upon exit from this particular section were a few more interesting birds. Namely three species of owl – Masked, Lesser Sooty, and Barking, all in fairly standard but not particularly good owl enclosures – and also an aviary containing King Parrots, Rose-crowned Fruit-dove, White-headed Pigeon, Black-breasted Buttonquail, and a pair of Green Catbirds. A particularly interesting aviary I thought.


After leaving the North-east Section, I entered the kangaroo walkthrough, the entrance to which was just nearby (as you can see on the map linked above). This walkthrough is actually quite large, though most of the kangaroos and people congregate around the area where the food is which visitors can feed to the kangaroos. They are mostly Red Kangaroos with a fair few Western Greys and a few Agile Wallabies dotted around too. What was quite surprising though, maybe even shocking, was the number of albino kangaroos there, which must have been at least a third of the kangaroos, maybe getting towards half. I don’t know if they are specifically breeding albino kangaroos or not, but they definitely are breeding because I saw many albino females with albino joeys in pouches, and I guess they are an interesting curiosity for tourists, but I’ve never seen quite so many before.

Though most of the kangaroos, as I said, were around the entrance area where the food is,

there were kangaroos dotted around the rest of the enclosure too, and I went all the way up and down the enclosure just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything and the only thing, apart from more kangaroos, that I would have missed if I hadn’t done that whole thing was an Emu enclosure where one of the Emus had an egg. A keeper said that the Emus have been laying loads of eggs recently, and the eggs were collected to either be used to feed the Quolls in an interesting way, or cleaned out and sold in the gift shop as souvenirs.

So I exited the kangaroo walkthrough, and continued to the next geographical section – the South West. First in this section were two aviaries, quite a small one for Carnaby’s White-tailed Black Cockatoos, and a rather nice one for Western Rosella, Elegant Parrot, and Purple-crowned Lorikeet. Next are a few paddocks for Tammar Wallabies (including an albino), Wallaroos, and Cape Barren Geese, and then is a very large walkthrough waterfowl aviary. The waterfowl species were all fairly common, though it was quite a nice aviary, and within the aviary were sections for Oblong Turtles and Quokkas. Outside that aviary, in the rest of the South West Section, were a couple more enclosures for Quokkas as well as an enclosure with a rather aggressive pair of Black Swans.

Also near here, and for me at least the most interesting part of this section, was a long, and rather nicely done up, aviary with a wide variety of interesting birds (on the species list everything from Chestnut Teal to Brown Quail, inclusive). So a very visually pleasing aviary, and seemingly pretty good for the birds as well.

Opposite this aviary was a large enclosure with an 'Under Construction' sign on the glass, but from the location within the geographic sections, and the appearance of the enclosure, I would guess this will be for Little Blue Penguins. And finally for this section of the zoo were a couple of aviaries at the exit of this section holding a few more South West Australian birds such as Red-capped and Regent Parrots.

So I then continued across the bridge over the walkthrough kangaroo enclosure (that bisects the zoo) and the next thing was the reptile house. This held the majority of the zoo’s reptile collection, mostly in rather small, though I wouldn’t say smaller than average tanks, with a fairly big collection of Australian reptiles and two species of amphibian. There were some interesting species, but the exhibit itself was not particularly unusual.

Next along from the reptile house was the 'Wombat and Friends!' show which is a heavily advertised show that is on several times per day. The next show was in twenty minutes which, coincidentally, would be about the right time, because opposite the show area was a little area of picnic benches surrounded by a U-shape of aviaries. There was a variety of interesting birds in these aviaries including a few that I think are quite unusual, and the highlight in these aviaries for me were the Spinifex Pigeons that I thought were awesome. They were all fairly good aviaries, particularly the one with the small birds which had the most unusual species and seemed to be the nicest and best for the birds, though some of the ones for the larger birds may have been a little on the small side.

So I looked in those aviaries for a while, not managing to see the White-winged Fairy-wren so I would have to go back (I went back right at the end of the day and saw it) and then the doors were opened allowing people to go into the 'Wombat and Friends' show. This show is held in a tent-type thing and I don’t really know how to concisely describe it so here is a picture and is actually a very large area which is good because being such a popular attraction within the zoo, it was full of people.

Inside were several 'stalls' with different animal encounters. The main attraction was a photograph with a bored-looking wombat and there was a big queue to do that, but some of the other displays were more interesting to me. There was a Spotted-tail Quoll on a leash being fed some meat contained within an Emu egg, and it was amazing to get such a close view. There were also displays of Bettongs, birds of prey, and parrots, and a few displays where the animals could be touched and stroked which were for Golden Brushtail Possum and various reptiles. So the 'Wombat and Friends' show was certainly quite interesting, and definitely a big draw for visitors. Speaking to the keepers with the animals, they do seem to have the best interests of the animals in mind, not subjecting them to undue stress, and rotating the animals around so no individual animal spent too long being in the show.

After that show, I continued on to the domestics area which takes up a fairly large area with fields, but I wasn’t so interested in it because I'm not interested in domestics. There was a little nursery and hatchery area with some eggs in incubators and little chicks, and also a walk-in petting area with some turkeys, goats, and sheep, but most of the domestics area was fairly large paddocks with a variety of domestic hoofstock. I did walk around the domestics paddocks though and as well as typical llamas, cows, pigs, sheep, horses, etc. there were also Fallow Deer and an Ostrich.

The next geographic section was the North Section, which started with a small aviary for Red-collared Lorikeet, Black-winged Stilt, and Blue-faced Honeyeater, followed by quite a small enclosure for a (small) Freshwater Crocodile which would be much to small for a full size one, but wasn't too bad for this smaller individual. Opposite these was a row of enclosures with Brushtail Bettongs, and each with a Golden Brushtail Possum.

Continuing around the North Section were then enclosures for Hairy-nosed Wombats and Northern Nailtail Wallabies, and an enclosure with two very active Spotted-tail Quolls that were rather interesting to watch. Next in the North Section were quite a few birds. There were two large aviaries with birds of prey – Black-breasted Buzzard and Wedge-tailed Eagle, a few smallish parrot aviaries with common cockatoo species, and more interestingly, a few aviaries with small birds and two further large mixed species aviaries. The highlight for me in the small aviaries were a few Flock Bronzewings which were nice to see, and the two other large aviaries mostly held some waterbirds, including larger species such as Radjah Shelducks, and also held Australian Bustards, one with a single individual, and one with a small group of them. Both of the enclosures containing the bustards were quite impressive in terms of size, giving the bustards quite a bit of space.

The bird aviaries were then followed by a few more mammal and reptile enclosures with two enclosures for groups of Dingoes which were doing a lot of howling to each other, Red Fox, and Short-beaked Echinda, and a variety of reptiles (in different enclosures) which were Shinglebacks, Perentie, Eastern Water Dragon, Northern Red-faced Turtle, and Plate-shelled Turtle. Most of these were fairly standard enclosures, though the Perentie enclosure had an underground burrow with viewing into it that I guess must have been heated for winter temperatures.


And finally in the North Section were two further bird aviaries with a variety of species of small birds with quite a few unusual species including Painted Firetails, White-browed Woodswallows, Varied Lorikeet, and Red-backed Fairy-wren. There was also a budgie repeatedly trying to mate with a Diamond Dove in one of the aviaries.

I then had one further geographic section of the zoo to see, the South East. Between the North Section and South East Section though, was a row of aviaries with Barn Owls, Boobook Owls, Tawny Frogmouths, Nankeen Kestrels, and Blue-winged Kookaburra, and also an Emu enclosure. The South East section is smaller than the other sections, though that may be because a large area of it was closed for the construction of a new 'photograph with koalas' exhibit. Meanwhile, there is a temporary enclosure for the koalas that does look rather ugly, but was the same basic structure as all 'photograph with koala' exhibits that I have seen which are little more than koalas on sticks. Before coming up to the koala enclosure though, was a row of basic mesh-fronted enclosures for various small mammals, namely Black and Grey-headed Flying Fox, Sugar Glider, Southern Brown Bandicoot, and Long-nosed Potoroo. There are also larger, but similar style, enclosures for Spotted-tail Quolls, and Golden Brushtail Possum and Rufous Bettong, and a much larger enclosure for Yellow-footed Rock-wallabies, which is a species that is particularly strikingly coloured. Also in the South East Section, as with throughout the zoo, there were a couple of aviaries dotted around. Specifically, a row of aviaries for small birds, and aviaries for Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo and Gang-gang Cockatoo.

And the two final things at around the exit of the South East Section but back on the main path were enclosures for both Common and Hairy-nosed Wombats, and two enclosures and a viewing area for Tasmanian Devils was the final enclosure of the zoo. At this point I popped back around to some of the aviaries to have another look at particularly cool things, and to look for things that I missed the first time around, before exiting the zoo.

So that was Caversham Wildlife Park then. I haven’t described each enclosure in too much detail because I have hyperlinked pictures of most of the enclosures because I think that’s easier and probably better. Hopefully it’s not too monotonous and list-like, but I wanted to do quite a thorough review because there isn’t much about it on ZooChat.

So concluding thoughts then. I really liked Caversham. A lot of their promotional material makes it seem a bit childish because they do publicise the many opportunities you have at the zoo to touch animals, but it is an excellent collection of Australian wildlife. In terms of what I liked about the zoo, as well as the impressive species list, I really liked the way the zoo was laid out with an obvious route to go around that didn’t have the feel of an obvious circle, and I liked the geographical theme which shows how varied Australia is but without sticking to the geographical lay out too religiously so as to compromise the collection (so still having a taxonomic reptile house) so in those ways I thought it was really good.

In terms of the enclosures, they were mostly alright. They were mostly big enough, and generally appropriate for the species held, though in quite a few cases they were a bit small. The other thing about the enclosures is that they are less 'polished' than in a major zoo, for example Perth Zoo that I will be reviewing next. There was a lot of viewing through mesh, and many wooden supported enclosures that were simply mesh fronted just didn’t look as good, and seemed more homemade and cheaper. Obviously that’s fair enough, the zoo probably doesn’t have the money to build big, expensive, fancy enclosures with loads of glass viewing and mock rock and other bits of theming that are not necessary from an animal-keeping point of view but would enhance the zoo for the visitor. I think this should probably be noticeable from the pictures, but I wanted to point it out because it does make a difference between a very good zoo and an excellent zoo.

Nonetheless, I did really like Caversham Wildlife Park very much, and it is most definitely worth a visit.

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