A rare and unexpected sighting – a wombat at Hutt Bay!

Back in November, I had an unexpected message from one of our elite NGT field work officers Andrew, who’d been doing some late-night fishing on the coast near NGT’s Hutt Bay property, and had travelled along our reserve track – “Wombat ran across the track 2.30am.” it read.

I immediately did a double-take! We do get Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus – also known as Bare-nosed Wombat) in certain strongholds in the South East including Dry Creek near the Glenelg River, and further west along the coast between Canunda and the Coorong. However, they’ve been subject to habitat fragmentation and the broad elimination from farming land in many districts that happened long ago. As a result, they’re very rare around the Port MacDonnell region (and generally patchy across the state). The only records nearby are an undated specimen from the Port MacDonnell township and a couple of records at Nene Valley Conservation Park (about 15 km NW of Hutt Bay) 28 years back.

The Thompson family who are adjacent landholders (and previously donated the Hutt Bay property to NGT) don’t recall ever seeing one around Hutt Bay, neither had another couple of dyed-in-the-wool, in-the-know locals.

Hoping to catch it on tape, I popped a wildlife camera out near the sighting and left it to do its work. After pulling in the camera about 6 weeks later and downloading the photos, I scrolled through endless Swamp Wallaby portraits, and branches being blown about by the wind. This is typical memory card-filler and it usually signals upcoming disappointment.

But about 400 photos in, suddenly… a wombat! One brief amble past the camera – again just after 2.30am. It triggered the camera only once in six weeks. In the image below you can see the ear and back of the wombat, but if you click on the image, you will see a series of subsequent images as the wombat wanders past.

So, we wonder – what’s this one up to?

Have wombats been quietly going about their business here undetected as they always did? Or is it a recent migrant after taking a risky journey from scrub further afield to the west, maybe even moving to the NGT reserve after hearing about our habitat restoration work?

Either way – at Hutt Bay, we’ve met nationally endangered Australasian Bittern, Swamp Antechinus and nesting Brolga.

All are welcome, so now it’s great to meet a wombat, and add this species to our growing list of native animals found on-site!