{"id":724685,"date":"2026-06-09T07:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T07:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/724685\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T07:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T07:14:08","slug":"wildlife-carers-hone-search-area-as-hunt-for-missing-tasmanian-devil-enters-second-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/724685\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildlife carers hone search area as hunt for missing Tasmanian devil enters second week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carers are honing search efforts to recover a two-year-old Tasmanian devil on the loose in a leafy Gold Coast suburb.<\/p>\n

The devil, named Mary, has been missing for a week after breaching her enclosure by making an “abnormally large leap” last Tuesday, according to Paradise Country wildlife park staff.<\/p>\n

More than a dozen staff and specialists have spent the past week in a frantic search for the marsupial, bringing in sniffer dogs and thermal drone technology to pinpoint her location.<\/p>\n

A breakthrough came Sunday night when Mary was spotted on a home security camera system<\/a> about 2 kilometres from the park.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Paradise Country said the sightings were crucial to help the team in narrowing the search area, but that Mary had been “quite elusive”.<\/p>\n

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The sighting has helped carers to triangulate a search area that backs onto the Saltwater Creek Reserve, with humane traps placed nearby in anticipation of Mary’s movements.<\/p>\n

Prime conditions for devil survival<\/p>\n

Carers have found devil droppings in the surrounding bushlands, as well as the remnants of a kangaroo and wallaby carcasses.<\/p>\n

Search continues for Tasmanian devil ‘Mary’ missing from Gold Coast wildlife park<\/a><\/p>\n

The recently arrived young devil has been kept in a secure indoor facility while quarantining, but was noticed missing.<\/p>\n

University of Queensland captive animal expert Al Mucci said there were promising signs for Mary’s survival.<\/p>\n

“As long as there’s food and water, she’ll be able to survive comfortably for as long as she wants,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The weather is on her side, she doesn’t have to adjust too much at the moment, the biggest threat is humans, dogs and vehicles.”<\/p>\n

He said devils could travel about 10 kilometres in a night, but not in a “straight line”.<\/p>\n

“[Mary is] moving quietly, she is nimble while cruising around the neighbourhoods and bushland,” Mr Mucci said.<\/p>\n

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Primary Industries, which takes in Biosecurity Queensland, said it was working with Paradise Country to ensure the park met its obligations.<\/p>\n

The park was closed after noticing Mary missing during daily morning checks to allow a widespread search, but reopened a day later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carers are honing search efforts to recover a two-year-old Tasmanian devil on the loose in a leafy Gold…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,55977,19602,261698,102194,261697,66,6772,261699,18850,261696,261700,323],"class_list":["post-724685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cctv","tag-gold-coast","tag-honed-area","tag-mary","tag-paradise-country","tag-science","tag-search","tag-sniffer-dogs","tag-tasmanian-devil","tag-tassie-devil","tag-thermal-drones","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}