It wasn’t uncommon for Rochelle Penney’s family home to be filled with wild animals.
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The daughter of the late Richard “Dick” Warren, who died in May after a battle with cancer, said their house was often filled to the brim.
“Dad and I had all sorts of animals in the house, much to my Mum’s disappointment,” she said.
Ms Penney said her first real experience raising an animal came when she was about six years old.
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“The first thing I hand-raised was a rabbit; the cat had got at it, and we didn’t think it was going to live, but Dad brought it in for me,” she said.
“I think I was about six years old.”
Ms Penney has inherited her father’s passion for animals, and now runs the zoo in his stead.
Tasmania Zoo is Warren’s legacy to Tasmania.
“He was always working here, he had a real sense of recycling and he built a lot of the pens himself,” she said.
Warren’s stamp on Tasmania Zoo is unmistakable, from the gas bottle wombat pen, or the truck tyre feeder for his exotic birds, or the famous dinosaur walk.
However, there was one part of the park Warren was particularly fond of.
“Tasmania Zoo was the first wildlife establishment to work with DPIPWE in the fight against Devil Facial Tumour Disease,” Ms Penney said.
In 2005, Warren generously built 20 large, off-display enclosures and housed 20 orphaned baby Tasmanian devils. The devils were orphaned by parents who had succumbed to DFTD.
“This special population of devils not only remained disease-free but have bred successfully every year since and contribute their important genes,” Ms Penney said.
Warren’s contribution to conservation didn’t end at the devils, however.
Ms Penney said her father had a special affinity for animals who were on the endangered list.
“He wanted to create the zoo so he could show these exotic and endangered animals and people from Tasmania could see them right here in the state.”
Warren, a Victorian, saw the potential in creating a wildlife park that could help educate the community.
“Over the past 15 years, Dad’s small fauna park has grown from native wildlife to now include exotic and threatened species and participates in formal conservation programs,” Ms Penney said.
His last effort before he died was a fight to get two Sumatran tigers to the zoo.
Brother and sister tiger siblings Jalur and Cinta arrived at the zoo in June. Ms Penney said the zoo family regretted Warren had not been able to see the tigers arrive.
Other notable achievements was the arrival of African painted dogs, capuchin monkeys and two red pandas.
Warren was described simply as a 71-year-old “crazy inventor” who always had a “devil of a time”.