“'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.... 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'".

[2] A tribute described the 71-year-old (zoo owner Dick Warren) as a “crazy inventor” who always had a “devil of a time”.Exhibits include Tasmanian devils, bare-nosed wombats, Sumatran tigers, African lions, servals, caracals, quolls, emus, koalas, eastern grey kangaroos, reptiles and monkeys.

The Tasmanian Zoo head keeper, Emma Morgan said that they had been preparing for their arrival for a long time.

The t-rex weighs 700 kilograms and was too large to travel when the Queen Victoria Museum exhibit moved to New Zealand.

According to Penney, the zoo "[W]as the first wildlife establishment to work with [the] Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment in the fight against Devil Facial Tumour Disease.

This special population of devils not only remained disease-free but have bred successfully every year since and contribute their important genes'".

[2] In 2012 the zoo was awarded a $28,394 grant from The University of Tasmania Foundation to improve food preparation for Tasmanian devil insurance populations.

The intruders also killed about a dozen birds, including a Tasmanian swift parrot, fewer than 1,000 of which remain in the wild.

The zoo does not receive government funding and Penney estimated that replacing each of the birds would cost up to 2,000 Australian dollars.

One area of concern is that the Tasmanian Devils were starting to enter their breeding season which requires a lot of monitoring by the zookeepers.