Deborah and Kerry Wilson are the owners of Rise and Shine, a property located approximately 65km northwest of Mackay. The property is a home and dedicated wildlife sanctuary which is used for agriculture, with some fruit trees being present as well as free range geese, ducks, bantams and a couple of peafowl. It is Deborah and Kerry’s intent to revegetate some formerly cleared cane paddocks and build a dam, which would provide an additional water source for wildlife.
The sanctuary covers 22.7 hectares, 8 hectares of which were previously used for cane farming with bush land comprising the remainder. A small seasonal creek runs through Rise and Shine and woodland on the sanctuary boards onto Mt Catherine National Park.
Examples of known wildlife inhabitants of Rise and Shine include short-beaked echidnas (Tachyglossus aculeatus), yellow-bellied sunbirds (Nectorinia jugularis), ringtail (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) and brushtail (Trichosurus vulpecula) possums, blue-tongued (Tiliqua spp.) and frill-necked (Chlamydosaurus kingii) lizards, smaller horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus megaphyllus), swamp wallabies (Wallabia bicolour), scrub pythons (Morelia amethistina), brown tree snakes (Boiga irregularis), sulphur-crested (Cacatua galerita) and red-tailed black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus banksii), kookaburras (Dacelo novaeguineae) and wedge-tailed eagles (Aquila audax).
