Delilah David, 8, has loved the roos at Symbio Wildlife Park since toddlerhood. Photos: Region.
Symbio Wildlife Park managing director Matt Radnidge is guest speaker at the next The Illawarra Connection (TIC) dinner on 1 April. He invited eight-year-old Illawarra girl Delilah David to review the park that has been part of his world since he was a child.
I’ve been visiting Symbio Wildlife Park since I was two. I’m eight now. It’s changed a lot in six years. I don’t think there was a playground back then and there definitely weren’t as many animals.
When I was little, my favourite part was always feeding the kangaroos. I couldn’t believe you could get so close! They don’t bite – their tongues just tickle your hands.
Even today feeding the kangaroos is fun. But now when I go to Symbio, I can stand on one of the flying foxes in the playground, and my best friend Charlie on the other, and we bounce all the way to the end. You can also watch some real penguins being fed. They swim right past the glass! They’re really fast swimmers.
My favourite animals to watch are the meerkats. They are the cutest, but they’re also really smart. Did you know their favourite food is scorpions? One of the zookeepers told us about the clever way they eat them without getting stung.
Once, I was a junior zookeeper for a day and I got to top up the water that kept the eucalyptus leaves fresh in the koala enclosures. While we were in the enclosure one of the koalas actually came down from his tree and onto the floor. It was pretty exciting, but we all had to freeze. You have to be very still around koalas on the floor, or they can get frightened.
When we went back to Symbio earlier this week, I actually had a koala encounter. We got to feed them and pat them – they were so calm and sweet, and their fur was super fluffy. It was a hot day, but they had plenty of water and even fans. Koalas in the wild don’t get fans so I thought, “These koalas are pretty lucky”.
There were four boy koalas in one enclosure – Johnny, Mannen, Bawinya and Comburra. Zookeeper Lee told us they were four very healthy, strong koalas, which is important for breeding, because koalas are an endangered species. I’m glad places like Symbio are here to help them.
There are presentations all through the day at Symbio, where you can learn about the animals. On this trip, I chose the Tasmanian devils. The first thing the zookeeper did was throw some deer feet into the enclosure, and the Tasmanian devils started making this strange growling sound. It wasn’t like anything I had heard before, and it wasn’t what I expected at all.
Did you know a Tasmanian devil litter can have 30 to 40 joeys, but only around four survive each time? Also, Tasmanian devil joeys are about the size of a grain of rice.
The splash park is another favourite part of mine. It’s awesome on a hot day. My favourite thing to do is pull a plastic chair under this giant bucket that slowly fills with water and dumps it all at once. It feels like sitting under a waterfall! It’s pretty funny – all the kids scream their lungs out when it happens, including me.
We always get lunch at the Symbio canteen and, if we’re lucky, a treat. It’s another thing that makes our trips there special. I don’t think I would ever get tired of it.
As told by Delilah David.
Symbio Wildlife Park is located at 7/11 Lawrence Hargrave Dr, Helensburgh and open from 9:30 am to 5 pm, seven days a week.
For the first time ever, the next The Illawarra Connection (TIC), on Tuesday 1 April at Lagoon Seafood Restaurant, is open to the public. Symbio Wildlife Park managing director Matt Radnidge will present the Symbio story “From Humble Beginnings to Conservation Leadership: The Symbio Wildlife Park Journey“. Tickets are $180.40 – register via TIC.
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