Native animals don’t make good pets, says Nature Park

THE Port Moresby Nature Park general manager Michelle McGeorge is appealing to people not to buy native animals as pets as they require specialised care and do not make good pets.
McGeorge said many of the Park’s rescued and surrendered wildlife were unwanted pets as people realised that they couldn’t properly care for them.
The park is PNG’s only internationally-recognised wildlife park and a member of the Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australasia, Australasian Society of Zoo Keepers and International Zoo Educators Association.
McGeorge said an agile wallaby, Benjamin, was given a new lease on life after being rescued and hand-raised by staff at the park.
His mother was killed by hunters for meat and when they discovered a furless joey inside her pouch they decided to donate the tiny joey to the park.
Benjamin has done very well, thanks to the expert care of the wildlife team and has grown in size and now has a full covering of fur.
He was fed special marsupial milk imported from overseas and needed to be toileted every time he was fed. Being eight to nine months old, he also sleeps in a bilum mimicking his mother’s pouch.
Benjamin is still quite young therefore it will take a few months of special care before he can finally join the others out on public display.
Over the past six years, the parkk has hand-raised, rehabilitated and saved hundreds of native animals which had been injured, orphaned or abandoned.