One of the Georgia’s little known attractions is the Kangaroo Conservation Center near Dawsonville. They have about 200 kangaroos there. The primary purpose of the place is breeding kangaroos to supply zoos, but they run a decent tourist business as well. A tour is about 2 hours. Part of that time is inside and where they introduce you to the different kinds of kangaroos and wallabies they have. They just let them run around an enclosed area with you, but they typically don’t come real close. They are very gentle animals and look a lot like deer when they’re not hopping around.
They also showed off a kookaburra and a very tiny antelope called a dik-dik. Dik-diks are territorial and mark their territory by rubbing a gland under their eye on anything that sticks out like a limb. They told us to stick out our fingers and some of the dik-diks marked people’s fingers with a tarry little blotch (one marked Susan’s finger, but not mine). Here’s a picture I took later of a dik-dik being curious through the pen fence. Their noses are very flexible and they can bend them around easily. They are very, very cute and about the size of small dog.
