Apologies for the 10-day silence. I have been very busy looking after a very sick Mum. Anyhow, here's some photos of a happy Mum meeting some of the critters at Kula Nature Park in Fiji. This small zoo was close enough to the Warwick that we could get to it even though the major roads were flooded in several places. The aim of the park is to preserve Fiji's endangered animals and birds. The most spectacular things I saw there were the green iguanas. Mum made friends with a Banded Iguana called Kevin. He was quite happy to have visitors handle him, provided they washed their hands first. There are also Crested Iguanas at Kula, but they are too nervous for visitors to nurse, and they can run and climb really fast so they are kept in special enclosures. The aim is to breed and release these rare reptiles. Mum also played with a small Boa Constrictor. She is not scared of snakes, but I kept well out of the way; I didn't like the way it was looking at me. The large parrots are also now rare in the wild. The red guy is a Crimson Shining Parrot and all he was interested in was chewing a small log to bits. The Masked Shining Parrot in the next cage was much more suspicious and kept us under close observation the whole time. You can see lots of rare species at Kula Eco Park, so put it on your Fiji bucket list.
Labels: animals, birds, Fiji
# posted by Bart Bear @ 10:36 am
