Using ground penetrating in radar mapping warrens. Research by Michael Swinbourne (PhD student, University of Adelaide); Supervisors: Bertram Ostendorf, David Taggart

1. Hairy-nosed Wombats:
When, where, why, how many, and what?
Michael Swinbourne (PhD student, University of Adelaide)
Supervisors: Bertram Ostendorf, David Taggart
Southern hairy-nosed wombat Northern hairy-nosed wombat

2. Presentation Outline
• Distribution at the time of European
settlement
– Changes over time
• Current distribution
• Use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to
map the underground morphology of warrens

3. Deniliquin
St George
Epping Forest
Nullarbor /
Far West Coast Gawler Ranges
Eyre Peninsula
Murraylands
Yorke Peninsula
Distribution of Hairy-nosed Wombats
Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons)
Northern Hairy-nosed Wombats (Lasiorhinus krefftii)

4. Distribution of Hairy-nosed Wombats
Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons)
Northern Hairy-nosed Wombats (Lasiorhinus krefftii)

5. Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons)
Northern Hairy-nosed Wombats (Lasiorhinus krefftii)
1836 - 1870
1870 - 1920
Distribution of Hairy-nosed Wombats

6. 100 km
Distribution of Hairy-nosed Wombats
in the NSW Riverina
Wakool
Tuppal
Jerilderie
Finley
Kershaw (1908)
(Peers (1871))

7. “.....For a considerable time past an incessant war has
been waged on the wombats, and in a year or so the race
will be exterminated. They are harmless creatures, but
the homes they dig in the earth are greatly fancied by
rabbits, and once firmly established therein it is a difficult
matter to dislodge them. The homes of the wombats are
being filled up and made rabbit-proof all over the district,
and it is to prevent any being kept open, or the formation
of new ones, that the destruction of the wombats has
been decreed.....”
- The Australasian 10 June 1893, p. 7

8. Timeline to Local Area Extinction
• 1859 – Jerilderie gazetted as a town
• 1879 – Rabbits arrive in area
• 1884 – Wombats declared noxious pests
– 5 /- bounty per wombat scalp
• 1885 – Over 1,000 wombats destroyed on one
property alone in one year
• 1897 – Wombat sightings in area ‘rare’
• 190X – Wombats believed extinct in region

9. Epping Forest
St George / Moonie River
200 km
Thomas Mitchell (1846)
Ludwig Leichardt (1847)
Mt Douglas
Carnarvon National ParkTambo
Injune / Mt Hutton
Distribution of Hairy-nosed Wombats
in Queensland

10. Distribution of Hairy-nosed Wombats
on Eyre Peninsula

11. Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons)
Northern Hairy-nosed Wombats (Lasiorhinus krefftii)
Fossil assemblages since LGM (Lasiorhinus spp.)
Distribution of Hairy-nosed Wombats

12. Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats in the
West

16. Questions ??

17. Implications for Wombat
Conservation / Management
• Rabbits
– Harmful, but control actions worse
– Biological controls
• disease, reintroduce native predators (?)
• Hairy-nosed wombats may be quite sensitive to
climate changes
– Next 50 – 100 years
• Higher temperatures
• Reduced winter / spring rainfall
• Increased drought frequency and duration
• Vegetation changes and introduced weeds