The Big Pheasant
The Big Pheasant stands at Gumbuya Park’s entrance in Tynong, North Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Gumbuya Park is a family amusement park featuring water slides, roller coasters and a wildlife zoo where you’ll find koalas, dingoes, lizards, tiger quolls, among others.
Pheasants are well-known for their colourful feathers and sexual dimorphism. The males are usually highly decorated with brighter colours, are larger, and have longer tails than the females. These birds can be found all over the world, but they mainly originate from Asia.
In October 2011, the beautiful 25-metre long pheasant was vandalized and an explosive attached to its rear end. The explosive blew up the structure’s rear side and caused shattering cracks in its body and neck. The suspect was arrested and charged for damages amounting to $50000.
It took about six months to repair the damaged Big Pheasant and restore it to its original form. Now, the gigantic pheasant sculpture, and other valuable property in the park, are guarded safely to prevent such attacks in the future.
Since the 1980s, the Big Pheasant has been the park’s attraction, also featuring in television advertisements. Initially, the amusement park was a pheasant farm before being converted into a park in 1978. Currently, the nature-themed park, now called Gumbuya World, sits on over 430 acres of land.
Victoria boasts several historic Big Things. From fruits to animals, you can never run out of options when you visit this state on your tour of the Big Things of Australia.
Some notable Big Things in Victoria, apart from the Big Pheasant, include the Big Strawberry in Koonoomoo, the Giant Koala in Dadswells Bridge and the Big Ned Kelly in Glenrowan.
To read more about the Big Things in this part of Australia, please visit the Victoria page on our blog.
