La Vanille Réserve des Mascareignes

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La Vanille Réserve des Mascareignes , also La Vanille Nature Park or La Vanille Crocodile Farm , is a privately operated zoological park in the Savanne district in the south of the island state of Mauritius .

description

Aldabra giant tortoise in La Vanille Nature Park
Nature trail through the rainforest in the park

The 3.5 hectare zoological park "La Vanille" is located inland, a few kilometers south of the village of Rivière des Anguilles in a hot and humid river valley. It was created in 1985 by a married couple, a Mauritian biologist and her Australian husband, on the site of a former vanilla plantation .

The world's largest captive turtle colony is located here with around 1,000 animals, including radiated tortoises from Madagascar , giant tortoises from the Seychelles and freshwater turtles . The park is the world's largest breeding facility for giant Aldabra tortoises with 114 adults and 700 juveniles . The oldest among them is an almost 100 year old male named "Domino" weighing 275 kilograms.

Another main attraction of the zoo are the approximately 2000 Nile crocodiles of all sizes and ages . There are also many other animal species to be seen in the facility's enclosures, terrariums and aquariums, such as Mascarene and Rodrigues flying foxes , geckos from Round Island , iguanas , caimans , ring-tailed lemurs and monkeys , giant toads and frogs , eels and carp , but also Wild boar , mongoose and deer . The park has a pet area where ponies, donkeys , goats , sheep and various breeds of chickens can be seen.

The insectarium collection, compiled by the operator Jacques Siedlecki over 30 years, includes more than 26,000 species and more than 30,000 specimens of insects , butterflies and beetles from five continents; it is one of the largest collections of this kind in the world and also contains extremely rare and now extinct species. In the Fossil Museum, a collection of ammonites from Madagascar is shown, which includes hundreds of specimens. Another exhibition area is dedicated to the dodo , an extinct Mauritian endemic bird species.

Breeding programs for a number of threatened species are carried out in La Vanille , which are subsequently released into the wild. The park is also involved in other conservation projects in Mauritius and Madagascar.

The circular path through the park also leads on the Nature Walk through a primeval forest-like area with bamboo , palm trees and other plants of the tropical rainforest . In the park there is the restaurant “Le Crocodile Affamé” ( German  “The hungry crocodile” ), which serves dishes made from crocodile meat, and a souvenir shop. A Ruston & Hornsby diesel locomotive has been on display in the park since 1986 , which transported sugar cane for the Savannah Sugar Estate until 1981. Until it was set up in the park, it stood in the fields.

Web links

Commons : La Vanille Réserve des Mascareignes  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Därr: DuMont travel manual travel guide Mauritius . DuMont Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7701-7688-5 , p. 266 ( online ).
  2. ↑ a b 95-year-old turtle in the crocodile park. Focus Online , November 13, 2015, accessed January 3, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b La Vanille Nature Park. mauritiusattractions.com, January 4, 2010, accessed January 3, 2020 .
  4. ↑ La Vanille Nature Park - Fossil Museum. La Vanille Nature Park, accessed January 3, 2020 (English, images from the Fossil Museum).

Coordinates: 20 ° 29 ′ 58.1 ″  S , 57 ° 33 ′ 47.8 ″  E