National Threatened Species Day and Spotlight on the Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat

"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught." Baba Dioum

Wednesday 7th September is National Threatened Species day – the day dedicated to spotlighting our threatened species – something we advocate for every day, and by supporting Fabriculture you do too. So Thank you for your support it means a lot to me and my small business.

Today I’m highlighting the critically endangered Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat.

Wombats are a marsupial and the closest living relative to the koala. Heavily built with a broad head and short solid powerful legs, they have strong claws to dig their burrows, where they spend most of the time. When wombats walk, their behinds sway from side to side. This feature make wombats appear slow and clumsy. However, wombats can move fast—up to 40 km/h over a short distance.

There are three species of wombat in Australia: the bare-nosed wombat; the southern hairy-nosed wombat and the northern hairy-nosed [NHN]wombat. The NHN wombats have a distinctive appearance with a broad nose, pointy ears, soft greyish fur with faint black eye patches.

With only about 300 wombats the critically endangered northern hairy-nosed wombat is in the top 10 most endangered mammal species in the world—even rarer than the giant panda! The species occurred from a large portion of the east coast before white settlement.

One of our largest marsupials- this is a species I did not know much about until recently.

Fossil records show that the northern hairy-nosed wombat was once widespread, through Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. However, since white settlement, this species has only been found in three locations—the Deniliquin area in New South Wales, the Moonie River area in southern Queensland, and the Epping Forest area in central Queensland. By 1982, the northern hairy-nosed wombats were restricted to a single population at Epping Forest National Park. In 2009 a small population of 15 was moved to St George in Qld.

A huge bundle of muscle Northern Hairy Nosed Wombats can weight up to 32 kilos by grazing almost exclusively on grasses and breed in Queensland’s wet season. Females breed once every two years in favourable conditions, giving birth to a single joey which continues to develop for around 9 months in the pouch. They can continuously grow teeth which means they can live for around 30 years or more – much longer than other Aussie mammals. They are generally nocturnal but will sun themselves on winter mornings and afternoons. That is, when they are not sleeping! They sleep up to 18 hours a day on their backs and snore like a chainsaw. They have a backwards facing pouch so the joey doesn’t get covered in dirt when mama wombat is burrowing.

Northern hairy-nosed wombats are generally solitary animals; however, they live in clusters of burrows that can be used by four to five wombats.

This species is still in dire straits and it is only due the efforts of Dr Alan Horsup over 30 years that this species is not extinct. He now has partnered with a few more conservation organisations and a truck load of volunteers to bring this species back from the brink but without his efforts we would have already added this amazing marsupial to our extinction list.

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The aim behind Fabriculture is to teach kids and their carers about Australia’s threatened wildlife. We do this through a variety of Australian made educational and lifestyle gifts and resources