![]() ![]() But that's still very low and they are in just two protected areas, in central and southern Queensland. Since then there has been a dedicated, very intense recovery programme and the numbers are up to about 250 now. When they first started doing research on the northern hairy-nosed wombat back in the 1980s, there were only about 30 individuals remaining. The northern hairy-nosed could have gone the way of the Tasmanian tiger it’s now one of the most critically endangered animals in the world. I estimate a population of twenty to thirty thousand were wiped out. Within 15 years they wiped out the whole population. Indeed, there used to be quite a sizable population of northern hairy-nosed wombats along the Murray River in the New South Wales Riverina, but back in the 1870s, they actually put a bounty on wombats to destroy their warrens so the rabbits couldn't survive. It may also have had a wombat in it, too, but that was the way it went.Ī southern hairy-nosed wombat sits outside its burrow. The thinking was: ‘There is a big hole in the ground: bulldoze it, it might have a rabbit in it’. And as a consequence of that, wombats became collateral damage. At the time and until relatively recently, the only way to control rabbit numbers was to destroy their burrows. ![]() The rabbits would compete with them for food, eating everything, and also push wombats out of their own warrens. In the late 19th and early 20th century rabbits started to spread across the country in plague numbers. Why were these animals on the brink of disappearing from the Nullarbor and how have they made such an impressive return? We've even seen birds and wallabies living in wombat warrens. It’s bloody hot on the Nullarbor in the middle of summer, and so wombats live underground, but of course a lot of other animals share their burrows: snakes, lizards, insects, echidnas. Wombat burrows are also refuges for other animals. They eat grasses if they can get them, as well as saltbush and bluebush. Some of these burrows are centuries old, and you can see how they have changed the landscape.Īnd of course the wombats’ scats help to fertilise the landscape too. If you remove these animals the ecosystem breaks down. When they dig and scratch around they make these little pits and furrows that trap nutrients and seeds, which increases germination rates for plants astronomically. Over time it's weathered and washes down, fertilising the soil. You can see these white mounds in the middle of patches of brown dirt in the landscape, and that is the wombats bringing up limestone. Wombats turn over a lot of soil and they break up the hard ground, bringing it to the surface. They are absolutely crucial to the health of the environment and the loss of burrowing animals like the wombat, and to a smaller extent bilbies and bettongs, has really impacted soil health in a lot of places.Ī wombat digs and scrapes soil from its burrow entrance. Wombats are known as ecosystem engineers. The wombat has played a role in the story of South Australia, what role do they play in the environment? Walter Watson Hughes grew wealthy from that copper find and in 1874 he donated £20,000 to establish the University of Adelaide. ![]() The miners protected the wombats the first Australian animal to ever be protected was the southern hairy-nosed wombat. The hotel in Kadina is still known as the Wombat Hotel and there is a memorial to wombats in the centre of Moonta. It led to a mining boom, which transformed the state's economy. Wombats became loved by miners because they would dig up copper, leading them to important finds. That original mine became known as the Wombat Mine and it is still there. It led to the development of the whole area of Moonta, Wallaroo and Kadina, which became the Copper Triangle. These rocks turned out to be copper ore, and an excavation underneath the warren turned up one of the richest copper finds of all time. The story goes like this: on the Yorke Peninsula back in the 1850s, there was a shepherd tending his flock, and he came across some unusual rocks outside a wombat burrow. In fact the University of Adelaide owes its very existence to the southern hairy-nosed wombat, which is also the faunal emblem of South Australia. Title video above courtesy Michael Swinbourne. Michael Swinbourne with a bare-nosed wombat. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |