Wombat Killing 'Out of Control'

LARINA STATHAM The Advertiser 1st October 2009

WOMBATS are being shot, run over, burned and buried alive in South Australia, wildlife carers say.

Brigitte Stevens has cared for more than 250 seriously injured wombats in the past 12 months alone, and says the state government is not doing enough to regulate the authorised culling of the southern hairy nosed wombat. 

"How can we stop illegal culling if the government is allowing legal culling," she said.

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Environment and Heritage (DEH) said 18 destruction permits for about 390 animals in total had been issued across SA to farmers to prevent damage being done to their property and crops.

"To ensure wombats are treated humanely, the destruction must be compliant with a code of practice," the spokeswoman said in a statement.

However, Ms Stevens claims DEH do not have enough staff to police how the animals are being culled.

Ms Stevens said some of the people people permitted to cull wombats were doing so inhumanely, as were people who killed the animals illegally.

She said that as well as battling drought and a skin condition caused by mites known as mange, wombat populations were being wiped out by petrol bombs and people bulldozing their burrows.

"Many have been shot and hit by cars and farming machinery," she said.

"We've got photographic evidence of wombats being buried alive.

"There are animals that we can't catch, but they appear to have been shot - their whole back end is gone and they are dragging themselves down the burrows.

"It's awful and it's getting worse."

Currently caring for 13 wombats at her property in the Murraylands, east of Adelaide, Ms Stevens SAID these marsupials, which inhabit most of SA and some of southern Western Australia, will almost certainly become extinct within the next 15 years if more is not done to help the species.

"Protection orders are desperately needed," she said.

"We've recorded 50 per cent less burrow activity and they're just not breeding."

The DEH spokeswoman said the wombats were not an endangered species.

Ms Stevens and her husband, with the help of Steve Irwin's father, Bob, and Western Australia's Peel Zoo, plan to establish a native wildlife rescue centre in SA by purchasing 13,000 acres of land 150km north east of Adelaide.

"The Wombat Awareness Organisation (WAO) is calling on people to help us set up our soft release program, but if there are businesses that can purchase the land and let us pay it back over a few years while we continue our fundraising- that would be great," Ms Stevens said.

"In the whole history of South Australia there has never been any relief for wombats with mange or drought - we're the first people to do it."

People caught by the RSPCA killing or harming any species of animal face up to four years jail and fines of up to $50,000.