Wobbegongs and nurse sharks visit the east coast of Australia. You can dive with boats out of Southwest Rocks or from one place near Sydney. Fish Rock Dive Centre is recommended by ElasmoDiver. 134 Gr...

A flock of cockatoos is damaging the spire of the Melbourne Arts Centre, according to cityparrots.com. The Centre is trying to scare them off with trained raptors. 100 St Kilda Rd Melbourne, VIC 3000,...

Phillip Island, 90 minutes off Melbourne, is a nature park that has a colony of the small blue penguins and a bunch of Australian wildlilfe.Nobbies Centre is for seals.Koala Conservation Centre helps ...

Dingos, the native Australian wolf, have much the same image problem here as wolves around the world. Plus, people just think they're baby-eating dogs. So, dog judges Lyn and Peter Watson set up theDingo Discovery Centre, just outside Melbourne, to let people see these wild canids in action and learn about them. Call for reservations.

Airlie Beach, on the middle of the coast of Queensland, Australia, is a good spot to look for dugongs. There's a big statue in town and you can take an "ecojet" ski tour to try to see the Australian version of the manatee, dolphins, whale, loggerhead turtle, mantaray.

Cape York Turtle Rescue offers 3 or 5 day stays in the bush where you will help survey nesting Green, Olive Ridley, Hawksbill and Flat Back turtles. Turtles are in decline here for the usual reasons and also because of feral pigs eating eggs. The Yupungathi people work with the camp, which is on Janie Creek.
Bonus species: salt water alligators 

Off Adelaide on Australia's south coast, particularly near Port Lincoln, you have the chance to swim with or see great white sharks, dolphins, sea lions and even tuna. 
Rodney Fox invented the shark cage and is a celebrity in the shark diving world.
Rodney Fox Shark Museum
Moseley Square, Glenelg SA 5045, (08) 8376 3373
FreemanX offers cruises to spot or swim with dolphins as well as cage dive with sharks. Theyalso have an unusual tour that lets you swim with tuna at a tuna farm. $45-$4000

Warrawong Earth Sanctuary takes in native animals with hopes of releasing them to the wild. They have a rare captive breeding program for endangered quolls. They also take in kangaroos, wallabies, platypus and have 100 bird species, including the laughing kookaburra.
You can visit any day but Christmas and even arrange to camp over in a cabin.
Earth Sanctuaries, Stock Rd, Mylor SA 5153, Australia, (08) 8370 9422

Too many endangered sea turtles were getting disturbed by tourists, so the Ningaloo Turtle Project set up the Jurabi Turtle Centre to give guided tours that won't bother the animals when they lay eggs in the middle of the night from November to March. Turtles start hatching in January.
Bonus species: whale shark, Manta Rays, Humpback whales.

Australia has six of the seven species of sea turtle in the world. One species, the flatback (Natator depressus), only lives in Australia. It's most abundant in Western Australia and Cape Thouin is probably the biggest nesting site on the mainlan,Australia's Environment Department says. You might also try Barrow Island, Cemetery Beach in Port Hedland, Eighty Mile Beach in west Kimberley, and Bell's Beach near Wickham. Nesting occurs mainly in December and January. .

Monkey Mia and Shark Bay are a likely place to spot dugongs, the Australian version of the manatee. The Coral Coast makes it a good place to endangered dugongs, either in Shark Bay or up by Exemouth.

Monkey Mia is known for attracting marine mammals. It's famous for Shark Bay dolphins that swim up in the shallows to be fed by humans. Researchers studying these peculiar dolphins say: "Most mornings between 7:00am and noon, five females and their offspring visit the beach to receive fish from the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) rangers. Visitors to Monkey Mia are able to enter the shallows and assist in the feeding under the supervision of the rangers. Very strict controls apply to the feeding of dolphins within the Monkey Mia area, it is illegal to feed dolphins unless under DEC ranger supervision."

The Tasmanian Tiger or thylacine stands in for all the species humans wiped out before they thought better of it. This peculiar, striped, predator marsupial was only wiped out in the 1903s--or maybe not. There have been many sightings since, mainly on Tasmania. (They were thought wiped out on Australia before Europeans arrived, but some sightings do happen there, too.) Tasmania-Tiger keeps an incredible map of sightings, which certainly makes it look like a real phenomena. One of the hotspots is around Launceston, Tasmania. 

Tasmanian Devils are in deep trouble, getting wiped out from a contagious mouth cancer. But Wildlife biologist Michelle Foale leads tours from Stanley into the Tarkine Forest, where she lays out roadkill for them.

Tasmanian Devil Park is a reserve where you can see Tasmanian Devils being cared for and fed. This area doesn't have the horrific, contagious mouth cancer that is wiping out the species. The park feeds the devils six times and day and lets you feed kangaroos. Bonus species: quoll, hawks, wild rosella parrots, which come to eat. Tarana, TAS, 1800 641 641

Brightside Farm Sanctuary takes in victims of factory farming and gives them a pleasant life in the country. They have 200 animals, including 2 cows, 4 steers, 2 dairy calves, 40 sheep, 3  donkeys, 8 pigs, a mule, an assortment of ponies and horses, 6 dogs, 4  geese, 20 rescued battery hens, 12 ducks, 6 goats, 2 rescued breeding  rabbits, 1 rescued meat rabbit. School groups can visit or they do presentations.
Channel Hwy, Gardners Bay TAS 7112, Australia

Ayers Rock - Uluru National Park - is home to 21 naive species, plus introduced camels. The local people believe the rock is sacred and don't like tourists climbing it.

Gisborne, New Zealand, has a few different kinds of tours to go out and see marine life.
Surfit  doesn't require a scuba license for you to go down in a cage and see mako and blue sharks--and also sometimes  bronze whaler and great white sharks.
64 6 867 2970
DiveTatapouri offers experiences boat, shallow water, snorkeling and diving experiences, some with Maori seafarers in the marine reserve Te Tapuwae o Rongokako. You may see sharks, dolphins, rare blue penguins or get a chance to feed stingrays.
(0064) NZ(06) 868 5153 

The blue penguin, the world's smallest, nests off Omaru, New Zealand. Penguins.co.nz says penguins are there year-round but peak viewing is Sept. to Jan. You can try to see them by day, night or boat.

Pohatu near Akaroa has a big colony of blue penguins, some of a peculiar subspecies, that locals have been busy protecting from invasive predators, New Zealand Penguins says. You can support the Pohat...

Bali's homegrown environmental group,ProFauna, works with local communities to patrol beaches and protect sea turtle eggs from organized poachers. 
Many of the nest sites are right in front of hotels, including the Sahid Hotel