David Fleay Wildlife Park

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David Fleay Wildlife Park is a heritage-listed wildlife park at Fleays Wildlife Park Conservation Park, Tallebudgera Creek Road, Tallebudgera, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1952 to 1983. It is also known as Fleays Wildlife Park. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 23 February 2001.Established by Australian naturalist David Fleay in 1952, the Park today is home to many native animals, which are displayed in surroundings similar to their natural habitats. Managed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Park aims to raise community awareness about the need to protect native animals, especially rare and threatened species. The Park has a long tradition of breeding native animals and also includes an animal hospital for sick, injured and orphaned animals.After investigating areas around Brisbane and South East Queensland, Fleay selected the Tallebudgera Estuary as a suitable site for a fauna reserve in late 1951. He acquired land there for a reserve in 1952, and added further parcels of land to the reserve in 1958 and 1965. Fleay's Fauna Reserve, as it was originally known, was established as a place of scientific research and education. Snakes, dingoes, scrub turkeys, ospreys, crocodiles and alligators lived at the sanctuary in "benevolent captivity", whilst bandicoots, flying foxes, the endangered eastern bristlebirds, white-breasted sea eagles, wallabies and koalas were free to come and go as they pleased. The Nocturnal house provides visitors the opportunity to view nocturnal animals such as the platypus, yellow-bellied glider, bilby and mahogany glider.