an abnormally large leap saw her clear a fence
A two-year-old Tasmanian devil named Mary, far from her native island home, cleared a fence at a Gold Coast theme park in the early hours of June 2 and disappeared into the subtropical bush for fourteen days. Her escape confounded the keepers who knew her as deeply shy, and her survival — evidenced by predation and tracks — reminded those who searched that wildness does not always announce itself. Found at last in unstable condition just two kilometers from where she began, Mary's brief freedom raises quiet questions about the nature of captivity, temperament, and what animals carry within them that we cannot observe.
- A marsupial considered too timid to cause trouble cleared a fence in the dark and vanished into unfamiliar bushland, leaving her keepers stunned.
- For two weeks, thermal drones, CCTV footage, and animal carcasses traced the outline of a creature that refused to be found.
- The search consumed the resources of an entire theme park operation while Mary's companion Mavka waited alone in a quarantine enclosure built for two.
- Mary was finally located just two kilometers from her escape point — alive, but in unstable condition, her body carrying signs of a fortnight lived entirely on her own terms.
- Now hospitalized and stabilized, she undergoes diagnostic testing while the full story of what she endured in the bush remains locked inside her.
On the morning of June 2, a Tasmanian devil named Mary cleared a fence at Paradise Country theme park on Australia's Gold Coast in a single, improbable leap. CCTV footage caught her at 4am — a dark shape already moving through the deserted grounds. She was two years old, more than 15,000 kilometers north of Tasmania, and according to everyone who worked with her, the last animal expected to run.
What made the escape so disorienting was her known temperament. Mary was profoundly shy. When activity stirred near her enclosure, she would retreat and hide. Curator Lauren Mousley described the discovery that Mary was the one who had fled as deeply abnormal. She and her companion Mavka had only recently arrived from a facility in New South Wales, but in that short time, nothing had suggested she was capable of this.
For fourteen days, search teams swept the Gold Coast hinterland with thermal imaging drones and combed the surrounding bush on foot. They found kangaroo and wallaby carcasses she had killed, droppings in the scrub, and a home security camera sighting roughly two kilometers from the park. Mary herself remained invisible, threading through creek lines and patches of bush connecting the manicured theme park grounds to wilder country beyond.
On Tuesday night, she was found near Kopps Road — still barely two kilometers from where she had started. She was in unstable condition. Village Roadshow Theme Parks confirmed her discovery had relied on CCTV tracking combined with geographical projection modeling. She was rushed to a specialist veterinary hospital, where her condition soon stabilized.
Mary remains hospitalized for diagnostic testing. Mavka is still in the quarantine enclosure, waiting. What began as a routine quarantine period became a two-week search that ended with more questions than answers — about what drove a shy animal to leap, and what her body, now in the hands of specialists, has yet to reveal.
On the morning of June 2, a Tasmanian devil named Mary did something her keepers thought impossible. She cleared a fence at Paradise Country, a theme park on Australia's Gold Coast, with what zookeepers described as an abnormally large leap—a burst of athleticism that would send her careening into the subtropical bushland, more than 15,000 kilometers north of where she was born. The CCTV footage caught her at 4am, a dark shape moving through the deserted grounds of the facility, already gone.
For fourteen days, Mary stayed gone. Search teams deployed thermal imaging drones across the Gold Coast hinterland. Zookeepers combed the bush. They found evidence of her presence—kangaroo and wallaby carcasses she had killed and eaten, her droppings scattered through the surrounding scrub. A home security camera caught her on film about two kilometers from the park. But Mary herself remained elusive, moving through the narrow creeks and pockets of bush that link the manicured grounds of the theme park to the wilder forests beyond.
The escape itself was bewildering to the people who worked with her. Mary was only two years old, an age when Tasmanian devils can be more adventurous, but her keepers had observed her to be profoundly shy. When movement occurred around her enclosure, she would bunker down, hide, retreat inward. Lauren Mousley, the curator of animals at Paradise Country, said in a video released after the escape that finding Mary was the one who had fled felt deeply abnormal given her temperament. The staff had only known her a short time—she and her companion, Mavka, had recently arrived from a zoological facility in New South Wales—but what they had learned suggested she was the last animal likely to attempt such a thing.
On Tuesday night, two weeks after she vanished, Mary was found in a patch of bush just off Kopps Road, still less than two kilometers from the theme park she had escaped. But she was in an unstable condition. Village Roadshow Theme Parks, which operates Paradise Country and several other Gold Coast attractions, released a statement saying she had been discovered following extensive search efforts that combined CCTV tracking with geographical projection modeling. She was rushed to a specialist veterinary hospital.
Within hours, her condition stabilized. The theme park's wildlife team continued to support her care as she remained hospitalized for diagnostic testing. Mavka, her companion, had stayed behind in the quarantine facility, waiting in an enclosure designed for two. The escape had separated them, and Mary's two-week absence had turned what should have been a routine quarantine into a search operation that consumed resources, attention, and the patience of everyone involved. Now, in a veterinary hospital on the Gold Coast, Mary was being held and examined, her body telling specialists what her shy demeanor had hidden all along.
Citas Notables
Finding that she was the one that headed out is very, very abnormal, given her demeanour— Lauren Mousley, curator of animals at Paradise Country
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why would a shy animal do something so bold as to leap a fence and flee into unfamiliar territory?
That's the question that haunted her keepers. Shyness and boldness aren't opposites in animals—sometimes they're two sides of the same fear. She may have been panicked by something, or simply desperate to escape confinement. We don't know yet.
Two weeks is a long time to evade thermal drones and trained search teams. What does that tell us about her?
That she's resourceful and knows how to hide. She found food—killed wallabies and kangaroos. She navigated creeks and bush. The shyness that made her seem unlikely to escape may have been exactly what kept her alive out there.
The fact that she was found in unstable condition—does that suggest she was suffering?
Almost certainly. Two weeks in unfamiliar terrain, hunted, stressed, possibly injured or malnourished. The search teams found her just in time.
What happens now?
Diagnostic testing will tell them what's wrong. Whether she can return to the facility, whether she and Mavka will be reunited—that depends on what the vets find.