{"id":896140,"date":"2026-09-18T04:38:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T04:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/896140\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T04:38:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T04:38:14","slug":"runaway-tasmanian-devil-back-on-display-at-wildlife-park-after-weeks-on-the-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/896140\/","title":{"rendered":"Runaway Tasmanian devil back on display at wildlife park after weeks on the run"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tell us about your experience. <\/p>\n

A Tasmanian devil that sparked a two-week search in dense bushland is back on public display at a Gold Coast wildlife park after spending months in recovery following her misadventure.<\/p>\n

Mary, the two-year-old escape artist, made headlines in June when she absconded from an enclosure at the Paradise Country park with what staff described at the time as an “abnormally large leap”.<\/p>\n

The daring devil spent more than two weeks on the run, evading sniffer dogs, thermal drone technology, humane traps and every other attempt to capture her.<\/p>\n

She was eventually found in bushland less than 2 kilometres from the park.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mary then spent the next five days in a specialist wildlife hospital where she was treated for inflammation of the brain, before being released to recover at her theme park home.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mary received around-the-clock care while recovering at Paradise Country. (Supplied: Paradise Country)<\/p>\n

Today, nearly three months after returning to the park, Mary was released into her outdoor enclosure.<\/p>\n

“I’m a little bit emotional when I think back at how many months it took to get her here,” the park’s wildlife curator, Lauren Mousley, said.<\/p>\n

“It took a lot of dedication, hard work, happy tears and sad tears, but it’s a great day \u2026 and we believe she’s ready for it.”<\/p>\n

After her escape, Queensland’s Department of Primary Industries (DPI) conducted an onsite investigation of Mary’s enclosure and the wider facilities at Paradise Country.<\/p>\n

“[DPI] is satisfied the enclosures were already compliant with legislated requirements,” animal security general manager Allison Crook said at the time.<\/p>\n

Ms Mousley said while the enclosure was found to be compliant, several new measures had been introduced to Mary’s habitat to prevent another “abnormally large leap” and a second escape.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Signs have been installed welcoming Mary back to her enclosure on the Gold Coast. (ABC News: Glenn Mullane)<\/p>\n

She said the ledges overlooking the enclosure were now “domed” to prevent any animals from getting a toe-hold.<\/p>\n

“We’ve also re-landscaped the habitat space so that all the trees are nice and central,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We had to put some other guards in, some non-climbable material on the trees, because they are climbers by nature, but we’ve extended those and increased the number of guards we have as well.”<\/p>\n

Mary is expected to be reintroduced to her fellow devil, Mavka, in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tell us about your experience. A Tasmanian devil that sparked a two-week search in dense bushland is back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,83824,2485,92263,55965,350774,128,21482,338,465316,25717],"class_list":["post-896140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-escape","tag-gold-coast","tag-marsupial","tag-mary","tag-paradise-country","tag-science","tag-tasmanian-devil","tag-wildlife","tag-wildlife-hospital","tag-zoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}