After two long months the second of two missing water dragons has made her way home to Natureland.
Marge remained on the loose after her and fellow water dragon Scauldron’s enclosure at Natureland Wildlife Park was broken into in October last year.
Scauldron, a male water dragon with medical issues, was found by a Tāhunanui resident sitting on a garden fence in November.
At the time, keeper Alix Rimmer said it had renewed hope that female Marge would also be found. But as the weeks crept on, with no sightings of her, hope started to dwindle. But Marge has now been found, right behind the enclosure she was taken from.
On Tuesday, 27 December, one of the keepers walked behind the enclosure that had been broken into and saw a water dragon.
“He was like ‘um, there’s Marge, what’s she doing there’,” animal care team leader Jos Kater says. “It was quite a warm sunny day and he just saw a water dragon run away.”
Two keepers ran out to the perimeter of the park and managed to capture her. She was immediately placed in a separate enclosure to be inspected by a vet.
“We were in happy shock, first we were like ‘no, that’s not real’, we were checking none of the other dragons had got out,” Jos says.
Jos speculates that since she was taken, Marge had been hiding out in the dense hedging surrounding the park.
“I think she just stayed there. Because it was still quite cold when she left, she just hid. Our hedge is quite thick and has quite a lot of sticks and things to hide in and would have loads of insects to feed on.”
Marge did suffer an injury to her tail during her two month hiatus which is currently being treated by a vet, but other than that is in good health.
“She’s very lively, very active and eating well,” Jos says.
