Environment and Resource Management

Reintroduction Blog - Trapping Session One

Monday 30th March 2009

The results from the swab taken from female wombat 166 were received today from the vet; it is pus not semen. This may be as simple as a localized infection but could represent something more significant such as a uterine infection. We plan to take out an ultrasound machine to Epping Forest and take an image of her genitourinary tract when she is next trapped.

Saturday 28th March

Time to remove the traps, pack up and hit the road.

At the end of this trapping session we have collared:

We also trapped a juvenile female and a juvenile male.

We are back out there in just over a fortnight so I will recommence the updates then.

Friday, 27 March 2009

Another night without much sleep for the crew at Epping and unfortunately no wombats trapped.

Infra red cameras were set up to capture images of the wombats with collars. The cameras are motion triggered video recording systems packaged in water-proof housing with re-chargeable batteries that last several weeks.

Thursday, 26 March 2009

Located collared animals and all are present and correct either in the burrows in which they were caught or in burrows close by.

The seventh wombat was caught, a sub adult male but he was too small to consider for the translocation. His body score was not as good as the other wombats, 2.5/5

Numerous other animals were keen however to try the trapping experience including echidnas, swamp wallabies and an eastern grey kangaroo.

Tonight is the last night in this trip.

Wednesday, 25 March 2009

Last night was very busy at Epping. We trapped and collared 2 wombats and several other species. Both wombats are in good condition. The other good news was that a wallaby was trapped in a burrow within the new rope net fence which we are trialling. This system gives us much more flexibility in where we trap.

The first wombat was an adult female, an animal that had not been caught before. How many other adult wombats are out there that we didn't know about? There was a secretion round her cloaca which we surmised was either sperm, and that she had very recently been mated, OR was pus and that she may have an infection. A swab was taken for analysis. The result will determine if she will be suitable for moving in July. She was allocated a cross for her reflective pattern.

sub-adult male wombat captured
Tim, the Project Manager and wombat about to go back to the burrow.
Photo: DERM

The second was a sub-adult male about 25kgs. This means we have all the males we need for the move but we may collar one more as a back up for the trapping success rate. His collar pattern is a Z.

Other captures included another bandicoot (likely a different animal from the one caught previously), an echidna and a rabbit.

We will continue to trap until Saturday morning.

Tuesday, 24 March 2009

Tracked wombats 108 and 115 and they have now returned to the burrows in which they were caught.

Caught a wombat in a target demographic that was collared with reflective collar pattern of an O. It was an adult male, 32 kgs and probably 18 yrs old. He had been previously trapped. Another animal in fabulous condition.

This takes us to 3 collared male wombats (2 adults and 1 sub-adult). Suitable females are proving to be more elusive but I am still pleased at the rate that we are going. It is also good that we have trapped a very young female.

We might have to consider trapping in May as well.

Monday, 23 March 2009

More slashing and brush cutting done today as well as removing some old fences.

Another wombat, a sub-adult female, but unfortunately for us she is a little too small for the translocation. She was in good condition, though, scoring 3.5/5.

Also caught a bandicoot, likely the same animal and another seldom seem animal, a spectacled hare-wallaby.

Sunday, 22 March 2009

More radio tracking and wombat 108 has been joined by wombat 115, both in the same burrow.

Did some slashing and brush-cutting around burrows in preparation for the next trapping trip in April.

No wombats elected to be trapped last night. Up to now we had not caught much in the way of by-catch but tonight was more familiar and an echidna and several swamp wallabies were caught and released unharmed.

Saturday, 21 March 2009

Time was spent locating the collared wombats using the radio receiving gear. Not always easy - sometimes you have to be right over an animal in a burrow before you can hear a signal. Wombat 108 was found in a burrow 57, a few hundred meters away and no signal for wombat 115.

No northern hairy-nosed wombats nominated themselves last night for translocation by entering one of our traps. But we did catch a northern brown bandicoot, the first to be caught in a wombat trap.

We had cast postal votes before coming out to Epping as today Queensland State elections were held. As there is no TV, we listened to the results as they came in on the ABC radio.

Friday, 20 March 2009

A fairly windy day spent moving the traps from the burrows where wombats have been caught to locations further north.

The 'bickering' of flying-foxes was heard tonight as they were feeding (and on subsequent nights) not often heard or seen this far west. We pondered on the whereabouts of their roost. The next morning the source of food was located - flowering bloodwoods.

The only animal to be trapped was a rabbit.

The wombats weren't biting but the ticks certainly were!

Thursday 19 March

Last night at a very respectable hour (10 pm) before most of the crew had gone to sleep, a sub-adult male wombat set off a trap. He was in fabulous condition and scored 4 out of 5 on the body condition scale. Appropriately, his reflective collar pattern is a diamond and he was tattooed no. 115. As with all new animals he was given a tattoo in his ear and a microchip/tag/transponder for identification purposes.


Tempted as I was to put in a photo of myself with Diamond 115, I didn't because he is so much cuter than I am.
Photo: DERM

We went back to camp and after a cup of tea most went to bed to catch up on some sleep. The general "feeling" was that the next wombat would be caught about 3 am so we were keen to get some rest. Just shows how wrong you can be. No further wombats were trapped.

Wednesday 18 March

Spent the cool of the morning - well until 11.30 am and the late afternoon setting a further 18 traps at 12 burrows. Still warm today though it felt a degree or two cooler than yesterday. The evening was spent tracing and fixing a faulty transmitter that had sent us out on a false alarm.

Good news - wombat 108, a male that had previously been trapped in both 1999 and 2006 has become our first prospective colonist, he is in good shape and we will be able to track his movements by the radio collar that we placed on him tonight (about 3 am). The collar has a distinctive T pattern of reflective material on his collar so that we will be able to identify him from images taken by our infra-red night cameras. We released him and before we had got back into the vehicle, word came through that a second trap had gone off but it was a false alarm. That trap was reset and it was to bed at 4 am.

Northern hairy-nosed wombat 108 did something the DERM rangers had rarely seen before… he refused to go down a burrow in the burrow complex from which he was trapped. He eventually did go down another burrow in that complex. One thing we did learn from 108 is that the self release device we were planning to use on the radio collars are too wide and sit too close to the jaw, which could cause chafing or pressure sores. Though these self release devices have been used on other wombat species, it seems the morphology of the neck/jaw line is sufficiently different to make them unsuitable. So we took it off and will have to manually take the collars off.

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Arrived at lunch time and the team spent the afternoon setting traps. Settled into camp.

3mm of rain fell last night but it felt like a lot more on the tin roof. The rain was certainly significant from the perspective of frogs, several species were making the most of it. Most of the time Epping doesn't seem to be a place you'd expect to find frogs being very dry.

No wombats trapped.

See also Trapping Session Two

 

Last updated: 19 May 2009

Northern hairy-nosed wombat, Lasiorhinus krefftii

Related information

xstrata logo

Topics in this site