G with a baby southern hairy-nosed wombat back in 2002

Now that we’re more than a month into our adventures, I figure it’s probably time that I contributed to our blog so what better way than with a detour to visit one of Australia’s rarest mammals, the northern hairy-nosed wombat. It was roughly fifteen years ago that I ventured into the world of wombats near the South Australian town of Swan Reach. I ended up being involved with various projects in South Australia on southern hairy-nosed wombats for around four years. A lot of those projects were focussed on developing techniques that could be applied to the closely related and critically endangered northern hairy-nosed wombat, which at the time consisted of one population of approximately 100 individuals, with as few as 25 breeding females. Despite being widespread in Queensland and into New South Wales prior to European settlement, this species was already in decline when land clearing in key habitat areas and further pressures such as predation led to the numbers being so low. For more than 20 years a recovery team, led by Alan Horsup, has worked tirelessly to save this species. Serena and I made sure that Epping National Park was on our ‘places to visit’ list and after a catch up with Alan in Rockhampton we made the drive out to the park. The park is now surrounded by a dingo-proof fence because in the early 2000’s they were recognised as a major threat to the survival of young wombats. The facility is first-class, given its location, with a large sheltered area for volunteers and staff to gather and has ample

The elusive northern hairy-nosed wombat!

accommodation. Water is the big issue out there as there has not been a decent rainfall event for three years! We drove out into the park on dusk and spotted a variety of birds and lots of swamp wallabies. But it was when the sun had finally set that we managed to see our first northern hairy-nosed wombat!! We managed to see another four of them before we went back into to camp for dinner, as well as a couple of spectacled hare-

G inspecting a burrow

A couple of happy wombat enthusiasts!

wallabies, which are also doing well within the park thanks to the dingo proof fence and supplementary water supply. After dinner we went out for another few hours of spotlighting and managed to see another five wombats! Looking through the visitors book at the park, it was clear to see that we were very lucky to have seen so many of these rare creatures in one night. It was also great to see so many familiar names that have visited the park from the wombat research community. It is estimated now that there are around 200 wombats in the Epping population as well as a handful that have been translocated to a site in southern Queensland. So hopefully we’ll be seeing this iconic Australian animal for many years to come.

The wombat searching vehicle

Spectacled hare-wallaby