Jon and Michelle van Beest are the owners of Cungarlmayler Carramar, a property located approximately 30km north west of Wauchope. The property is a dedicated wildlife sanctuary protected in-perpetuity by a Voluntary Conservation Agreement with the NSW State Government. It’s Jon and Michelle’s intention for the property to continue to be used as a wildlife sanctuary, and to restore the land to its former glory.
Cungarlmayler Carramar covers 47.32 hectares of relatively steep coastal hinterland. Half of the vegetation on the block consists of dry sclerophyll forest with the remaining half subtropical rainforest in varying degrees of restoration.
Wildlife known to inhabit the property includes planigales (Planigale spp.), phascogales (Phascogale spp.), antechinus (Antechinus spp.), spotted-tailed quolls (Dasyurus maculatus), pademelons (Thylogale spp.), swamp (Wallabia bicolor) and red-necked (Macropus rufogriseus) wallabies, long-nosed (Perameles nasuta) and southern brown (Isoodon obesulus) bandicoots, long-nosed potoroos (Potorous tridactylus), koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), red-tailed (Calyptorhynchus banksii), yellow-tailed (C. funereus) and glossy (C. lathami) black-cockatoos, treecreepers (Climacteris spp.), sitellas (Daphoenositta chrysoptera), wompoo fruit-doves (Ptilinopus magnificus), superb lyrebirds (Menura novaehollandiae), Stephen’s banded (Hoplocephalus stephensi), small-eyed (Cryptophis nigrescens), bandy bandy (Vermicella annulata), yellow-faced whip (Demansia psammophis), green tree (Dendrelaphis punctulata) and red-bellied black (Pseudechis porphyriacus) snakes, diamond pythons (Morelia spilota) and many more.