Wombat Protection Society
of Australia Ltd

Bulletin Number 9 - June 2007
 

Welcome to our Tracks, Scats and Wombat Signs edition.

Photograph taken in the town of Wombat
Picture courtesy of Leonnie Barrett

This is not quite the type of sign we are talking about!

This edition was prompted when Jake Grimshaw found footprints in Queensland that may have been those of the critically endangered Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat. Sadly, those he found weren’t from a wombat (they were possums’) and we promised this edition to help people find and recognize wombat signs.

The presence of wombats in an area can be determined by seeing wombats, finding a burrow, seeing scats and for the more determined, finding hairs and rubbing places.

Seeing a wombat is the surest sign of wombat presence and finding a wombat scat the next best indicator. Wombat droppings (faeces and urine) are very obvious and unlike that of any other animal so these are a clear indication that a wombat is around. Adult wombats choose high spots to defecate on, like logs or stones and their faeces is segmented into squarish looking pellets that range in size from 2-5cm. When first done they are greenish in color and sometimes appear to have a sheen. As they dry out they become browner and smaller, though they will expand after drying if they get wet (eg; rained on).

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Wombats leave their scats on top of rocks, logs or tufts of grass. This allows them to orient themselves as they can smell where they and others have been more easily.

Burrows are the next best indicator that there is a wombat around. Wombat burrows differ depending on species. The burrow of the Bare nosed wombat generally will have a single entrance, though occasionally they may build a back door as well. The Southern Hairy Nosed wombat builds more elaborate burrows, sometimes sharing these and they have more entrances.

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Burrows will often be built under or adjacent to a tree or a log on sloping ground. Wombats need something rigid like a log or a tree root to lean their head against to start digging. Over time as the wombat tidies its burrow and shovels dirt out, the entrance to the burrow gets a mound of soil outside known as spoil.

Many myths exist about wombats burrowing under houses and undermining foundations. This is unlikely these days but may have caused the occasional wobble when houses sat on stumps buried directly into the ground. Outside and near to most burrows keen observers will notice a flattened area, often with footprints in and around it. These “resting spots” are where the wombat will sit and scratch and survey the world after it has woken up. Sometimes these resting spots will be away from a burrow but usually they are nearby, allowing the wombat to run back to his or her burrow if he or she gets scared.

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photo courtesy Linda Dennis

Footprints are more difficult to find because wombats generally walk over their front foot prints with their back footprints. Where front prints are found they are a little like that of the dog, only much rounder.

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left: front feet courtesy Wilma the wombat
right: forepaw print - courtesy Bob Cleaver

the mysterious footprint - was it from a Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat?
No, it was the footprint of a possum!
courtesty Jake Grimshaw

Wombat’s use their front feet like hands. When they close their hands they form tight balls and their long claws fold together. They often sleep with one or both hands curled up. Wombats are very capable of manipulating objects and holding them in their front feet. They use their front feet to dig and their back feet to push the dirt out behind them. Often after wet weather they tidy their burrows up and spoil- dug out soil can be seen.

The backfootprints of wombats are found more often than the front ones because they are the ones that walk on top of the front.

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A wombat has a pigeon-toed walk that is unmistakable
courtesy Bob Cleaver

Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat rear footprint
photo courtesy Shirley Lack

Back footprints look like those a small child would make, (description thanks to Shirley Lack)….albeit a very pigeon toed child! For further reading have a look at Barbara Triggs’ books; The Wombat, a UNSW Press book and Tracks, Scats and Other Traces, an Oxford University Press book. If you are interested in these the society can get them in for you, just call or email us to order. Happy wombating!!!

JOEY'S PAGES

Anusha
Courtesy Bob Cleaver

Hello everyone. I’ve finally got a name. It is Anusha. (Annie for short) Thank-you to all the joeys’ who helped my carers, Jan and Bob Cleaver find me a name. I am very happy with my name. I got sick with a thing called coccidia and had blood in my poohs. My human carers gave me some medicine and I’m much better now. I’ll let you know how I’m going, hope you are all doing well.

If you have read the rest of the Bulletin you will know it was all about how to find wombats. If you find a burrow, how do you know whether a wombat is living in it? Wombats use a number of burrows, some have five or more spread around the area in which they live. They might stay in one burrow for a few weeks and then move off to another one. Sometimes you can tell if they are visiting the burrow you have found because there will be fresh poohs around near the burrow. Wombat poohs are called scats.

Wombats are very clean animals and they don’t leave their scats in their burrow or too close, but they will make a toilet spot within a couple of metres of their burrow. Baby wombats (joeys) don’t pooh out in the open like adults do, they hide in amongst grass or in behind logs and rocks and go to the toilet there. Why do you think they do that ?

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Left: Wombat track through the bush note the logs and sticks wombats’ walk under
Right : Burrow entrance marked with sticks

If little wombats didn’t hide their poohs, it would tell other animals where they had walked. That could be dangerous. Dingos sometimes eat young wombats. Young wombats follow their mums and they stick VERY close, so it is mum who needs to find her scats to find her way around the bush. Baby wombat just needs to stick close to mum.

If you look carefully at the bush you might be able to see where wombats walk. Wombats will walk under logs and branches and often the grass is pushed down and looks a bit like a tunnel. Kangaroos and Wallabies usually follow a clear track, without having logs and branches to walk under. Often you can see slide marks going down banks where the wombat sits down and slides instead of walking. If you find a burrow and want to work out whether the wombat comes out or goes in, you can place some sticks in the entrance. The photo above shows how.

See if you can work out what will happen to the sticks if the wombat goes in and what will happen to the sticks if the wombat comes out. Send in your answers to info@wombatprotection.org.au.