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Tue 10 Dec, 2002 11:50 pm
Help! A wombat's got my bagel!
Tent repairers are enjoying a small boom, thanks to wombats at Wilsons Promontory tearing into campers' tents in increasing numbers.
Spoiled on an abundance of food scraps over the summer months, when the human population is heaviest, the wombats are turning up at the camp sites in winter looking for hand outs. When the pickings prove slim, they raid whatever tents are at hand. Or claw.
According to rangers at the Tidal River camp site, wombat invasions have been steadily on the rise. So, too, are the numbers of campers being nipped on the ankle or bowled over by the furry footstools. And it's the campers themselves who are to blame.
"Because people are feeding them ... icecreams, sweets, chips, bread, they're now used to people, so they come looking for people," says head ranger Jim Whelan. "Just as campers have problems with bears in Canada, or with dingoes on Fraser Island, we have a problem here (with) wombats going into tents, looking for food. We have to give some thought about what to do, because it's getting worse."
One option, says Mr Whelan, would be to relocate individual nuisance wombats. Tidal River education officer Graeme Baxter says: "People can walk up and pat them, that's how much they're used to people now. And what seems to be happening is the wombats will be accommodating for a while, and then something happens and they'll nip someone or give them a bit of a shove ... People forget they are wild animals."
Alex Haslau, of Remote Equipment Repairs in Melbourne, says: "We have a fair bit of stuff coming in off Wilsons Prom. Mainly wombats getting into tents, walking straight through the fly screen. They claw through one end, root around inside for food, and go out the other end."
He said he repaired about 20 tents like this over a season, but lately numbers had increased.
The Age, 26 Aug 2001
Hmmmm - never argue with a wombat - they are built of pure muscle and are very disinclined to mind if you are in their way - and very strong diggers....
I'm just here to say I adore the title of this topic.
Wot? I thought you people didn't have bagels down there? lol
Sounds like a similar problem we in the US keep running into every few years with bears in some of the national parks.
"If you feed them they will come!"
dlowan wrote: . . . very strong diggers . . .
Yes, but aren't you all ?
wombats? Dangerous? Surely you aren't serious.
Very funny, Setanta!
Well, 'k, they are not in the least dangerous usually - but, if they want something they tend to go straight through you - and they are very strong and have big teeth - they pack a mean bite and scratch if they feel provoked. If they have become accustomed to people I can imagine that someone might come off worse in a physical encounter, if they were trying to discourage a wombat from doing something!
They are not social animals, and don't tend to have much sense of body signals or stuff like that - they are like little, furry, muscular tanks!
I have had friends knocked down and run over by them at wild life parks, not from any hostile intent, but simply from being where a wombat wished to go and making the false assumptioon that the wombat would go AROUND them!
They are tres cute though - a very anthropomorphically attractive animal - and such characters.
They are often used in Australian humour to denote the behaviour of the less socially sensitive Australian male in matters of romance: "He is just like a wombat - eats roots shoots and leaves...."
gasp - I never said that!
teehee
we have a few wombats at our local zoo. There was a book I had as a kid - loved it. It was called Wump World. The Wumps were downright wombatish.
dlowan wrote:They are often used in Australian humour to denote the behaviour of the less socially sensitive Australian male in matters of romance: "He is just like a wombat - eats roots shoots and leaves...."
gasp - I never said that!
I am soooooooo going to remember this. :wink:
My father used to call us wombats. When we were little. And when we were not so little, too.
Wombats aren't dangerous, at least the ones in Hawaii. We once had a friend with us on a vacation there and he hadn't been laid in the first week of the trip and was crying the blues. Someone mentioned that wombats wouldn't attack unless you cornered them, to which he exclaimed, "Quick where are they!"
Since when were there wombats in Hawaii?
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