Tasmanian Wilderness: Wildlife, Landscape, and Conservation

Hello, we are Zelai and Dylan, and we are going to talk to you about the Tasmanian Wilderness.

Location

Tasmania is a state that complies with the Commonwealth of Australia, which is located in Oceania. The state consists of the entire island of Tasmania along with some adjacent islands and is located 240 km southeast of the continent, separated by the Bass Strait.

Landscape

Okay, I'm going to start talking about the landscape of Tasmania. In Tasmania, there is a very different variety of landscapes. We can find very green landscapes full of trees and different types of plants to very large deserts. The Tasmanian *average* temperature is 23ºC during all the year.

Wildlife

The Tasmanian wilderness has one of the most special and rare wild fauna in the world. To contemplate many of their animals, you have to go to Tasmania because they are only there. The same goes for the plants; the plants that are in Tasmania, they are only in Tasmania.

For example, the kangaroos there are only in Australia. And the Tasmanian Waratah is one of the most beautiful flowers that are in Tasmania.

Sarcophilus Harrisii

One of the most famous animals of Tasmania is the *Sarcophilus harrisii*, also known as the Tasmanian devil.

The color of the Tasmanian devil does not change; they all have the same black coat with a white breast. Males are larger than females. Its average is 65 centimeters for the male and 57 centimeters for the female, counting head and body. The males usually weigh around 8 kilograms, and the females weigh 6 kilograms.

The Tasmanian devil is a species of *dasyuromorphia* marsupial of the *Dasyuridae* family. It is the largest carnivorous marsupial existing today, after the extinction of the marsupial wolf. It can reach up to 15 km per hour. They live in herds, which means they do not hunt or eat alone. As we have said before, they are carnivores; they eat rats, small javelins, and they can even hunt and eat animals bigger than them. They only hunt at night; during the day, they sleep in the bushes. They can also spend a whole week without knowing what water and food are.

This animal is in danger of extinction for various reasons, such as car crashes, illegal hunting, etc. But the main cause is cancer that has been discovered and that veterinarians believe is inevitable. This animal is very well-known thanks to the Warner Brothers cartoons.

Conservation to Protect the Area

UNESCO - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is the association that protects many areas of Tasmania for plants and animals. Registered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982.

Although UNESCO is in charge of many areas, there are others that it does not take care of, and due to the high temperatures and the pollution of tourists, there are big forest fires. The last one was this last month of February, when the fire came to devastate 200,000 hectares.

Activities to Do in Tasmania

We have been looking at several activities to do in Tasmania, and there are some very interesting ones and others not so much. These are some of the ones we have found:

• Entrance to Tasmanian Devil Zoo: That is to enjoy an encounter face to face with the strange devil in the conservation park of the Tasmanian devil. You can even feed local animals like kangaroos in this beautiful place.
• In Tasmania, hiking is very typical, and one of the best places to do it is Mount Wellington. It is one of the most famous mountains in all of Oceania since you have great chances of finding the strange plants and animals that we have named before.

Curiosities

• Tasmania has several very strange curiosities. But one of the ones that has caught our attention is that the rainwater of Tasmania is so pure that the water used to fill the pools of the Olympic Games is the rainwater of Tasmania.
• The mountain received its name in honor of Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington, winner of the Battle of Waterloo. The original name of Wellington comes from the English population of Wellington, in the county of Somerset.