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Rescue mission for wombats buried alive

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I'VE BEEN WATCHING  with horror this week as conservationists race against time to rescue a number of southern hairy-nosed wombats buried alive by farmers’ ploughs in the Mt Lofty Ranges near Adelaide.

So far one wombat has been found alive, but up to 10 others may still be trapped underground. It's a horrible situation - if they are not rescued, they face a slow and agonising death from suffocation.

According to the non-profit group Wombat Awareness Organisation, this is the latest of an increasing number of deliberate and cruel attempts by farmers to eliminate wombats from their properties.

Wombats’ burrows damage farmland, and in South Australia farmers may apply for a permit to shoot wombats. However, the conservationists are alleging that many farmers are resorting to illegal and inhumane methods of destruction, including bulldozing burrows, planting petrol bombs (!), and running over wombats with farm machinery.

“It’s awful and it’s getting worse,” Brigitte Stevens, a Wombat Awareness Organisation representative and wildlife carer, told the Adelaide Advertiser. Without stronger protection laws, she says, southern hairy-nosed wombats risk becoming extinct within the next 15 years.

The group has gathered photographic evidence of inhumane killing methods, which they plan to present to the RSPCA and the South Australian Department for Environment and Heritage.

The claims so far are “largely unsubstantiated,” the department’s chief executive Allan Holmes told ABC News, but “given the evidence we will prosecute with the full force of the law.”

Is this conflict between wombat and farmer inevitable? Burrowing wombats are only doing what wombats need to do in order to survive. I find it saddening that native species in Australian face such a constant battle with human encroachment.

South Australia abounds in wildlife and dramatic sights. Southern right whales play in the turbulent waters of the Great Australian Bight, waders congregate in the Coorong, and sea lions laze on the rocky shore of Kangaroo Island. Explore the dusty paths of the Flinders Ranges, or, if you’re feeling adventurous, go diving with Great White Sharks.
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Comments 2

  • Allison

    08 Jul 2010

    Bah! My favourite Australian animal. I am absolutely disgusted to hear this. Report

     

  • judi ewings

    07 Feb 2011

    What possibility of a follow-up on this from the RSPCA and the SA Dept for Environment and Heritage? Report

     

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