Maria Island Wildlife Viewing

The grassy clearings around Darlington township are the best starting point for wildlife observation. Wombats of the Flinders Island subspecies, recognisably blonder than their mainland counterparts, graze throughout the day in winter and in the cooler morning and late afternoon hours in summer. The hilltop above the Darlington jetty offers particularly photogenic sightings, with wombats framed against the sandy beach and Mercury Passage. The area around Hopground Beach and the adjacent campsite is another reliable location for wombat and pademelon encounters.

Forester kangaroos, Tasmania's largest macropod, tend to graze on the grassy northern hills near the old cemetery in the late afternoon. Cape Barren geese, among the world's rarest geese, are encountered throughout the island and are often remarkably indifferent to passing walkers. Short-beaked echidnas forage in the heath and woodland year-round. Birdwatchers should watch for the forty-spotted pardalote, one of Australia's rarest birds with much of its global population restricted to a handful of sites including Maria Island. Green rosellas, flame robins and scarlet robins are also reliably seen.

Tasmanian devils were re-introduced from 2012 as part of a captive insurance population program and have established a stable breeding population on the island. They are almost entirely nocturnal, so overnight guests staying at the penitentiary bunkhouse or the Darlington campground have the best chance of an encounter after dark. Dolphins are frequently seen from the ferry crossing, and humpback whales pass through Mercury Passage during their northward migration between May and November.