EASY WAYS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE AND BECOME A WOMBAT WARRIOR
- Tell your friends and family to slow down when driving at night. If you do accidentally hit a wombat, stop and ring Wombat Awareness 0458737283 or Fauna Rescue 08 8289 0896 immediately.
- If you see a wild wombat, record it on the WomSAT data base WomSAT.org.au is a resource for communities to record sightings of wombats across the country. Across Australia wombat numbers are declining and you can help to protect them by recording where you see wombats and their burrows in your local area.
- Volunteer to help maintain suitable habitat (a number of groups like Bush Heritage Australia or Wombats SA)
- Support Organisations who advocate and rescue wombats such as Wombat Awareness Organisation is a non-profit organisation specialising in the rescue, rehabilitation of the Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat. You could have a class project to raise money to adopt a rescued wombat to support their fabulous work.
- Protect wombat habitats, don’t plough, dig or fill wombat burrows.
- Research and learn all you can about this amazing mammal. We all need to know more about this protected species. Blackwood High School students have been innovative and creative in their research and encouraging others to take action to protect wombats. You can read about what student have done here.
- Teach others to understand, admire and respect wombats. It is against the law to kill native animals. So if you know of someone who shoots, buries wombats alive by bulldozing their burrows call the police.
- Take action and encourage others to value and protect natural environments and the plants and animals that depend on them, especially wombats. These amazing, curious and important animals are important to the health of eco systems as they dig for food, such as Thread Iris corms, creating small pits in the ground, which trap organic material and seeds, improving water infiltration and plant germination. In the 2020 bush fires their burrows provided refuge to many native animals and there is examples of wombat burrows being used as drinking holes by many other native animals in NSW in the drought.
- Write to your local member of parliament, the Federal Minister for the Environment or the Prime Minister, asking for more funding to support national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, particularly in marginal Murray land farming areas.
- MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD! This article tells of a decision to cull of 200 wombats on the Yorke Peninsular in 2020 despite the species being Near Threatened and this being one of the few remaining viable populations remaining in SA. This cull was eventually cancelled as a result of significant protest from the public, members of the the Greens and Wombat Awareness. It is a great example of how individuals can come together and make a difference.