Wildlife Land Trust / Sanctuaries / QLD / Mungarru Lodge Sanctuary

Geoff Moffatt and Daryl Dickson are the owners of Mungarru Lodge Sanctuary, a property located in Kennedy, approximately 85km South of Innisfail, Queensland.  The property’s primary uses are as a private wildlife sanctuary, business, residence and mahogany glider (along with other wildlife) rehabilitation facility and release site. It is Geoff and Daryl’s intention to continue these activities while also revegetating a further 0.5 hectares of and providing maintenance and ongoing protection for their existing endangered species habitat.

The sanctuary covers 3.58 hectares of part regrowth but primarily remnant tropical woodland and riparian gallery rainforest.  A permanent creek runs along the rear border of Mungarru Lodge Sanctuary, while adjoining other boundaries are small acreage rural residential properties, parkland and road reserves, with the remainder cane field state forest. The creek boundary in particular provides landscape linkage, with the Meunga Creek riparian corridor connecting the Kirrima Range World Heritage Area and Girrugun National Park to the west and Edmund Kennedy National Park and Great Barrier Reef marine reserves to the east.

A huge range of wildlife is known to be present on Mungarru Lodge Sanctuary, with a comprehensive list featuring approximately 175 individual species, dominated by more than 125 bird species alongside over 20 mammal and 20 reptile varieties.  Species of particular note are headed by the EPBC Act listed Endangered southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) and mahogany glider (Petaurus gracilis), with further examples including grey goshawks (Accipiter novaehollandiae), wedge-tailed eagles (Aquila audax), brolgas (Grus rubicunda), Wompoo fruit doves (Ptilinopus magnificus), long-nosed (Perameles nasuta) and brown bandicoots (Isoodon obesulus), platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), agile wallabies (Macropus agilis), spectacled flying foxes (Pteropus conspicillatus), lace monitors (Varanus varius), coastal taipans (Oxyuranus scutellatus) carpet pythons (Morelia spilota) and red-bellied black snakes (Pseudechis porphyriacus).