Reintroduction Blog - Trapping Session Three
- Friday 29 May 2009
- Thursday 28 May 2009
- Wednesday 27 May 2009
- Tuesday May 26 2009
- Monday 25 May 2009
- Sunday 24 May 2009
- Saturday 23 May 2009
- Friday 22 May 2009
- Thursday 21 May 2009
- Wednesday 20 May 2009
Friday 29 May 2009
In the 1950's, movies depicted expectant fathers pacing outside the labour ward as being tired, hopeful and slightly anxious. Rather like waiting to find out what is in a trap after the crew has gone but not radioed in yet. There were plenty of wallabies last night in the traps so the "checking" team didn't get much sleep. They did see 5 wombats but none in a trap.
Recapping, this session we have trapped 3 wombats, a male adult, a female adult and her pouch young (2 for the price of one!)
We have lots to do before now and reintroduction day in July so I will continue do some ad hoc updates.
Thursday 28 May 2009
Epping at 11 pm last night was cooler than it had been over the last few nights and the breeze had dropped. We had already trapped 5 swamp wallabies and there was hope in the voice of Gail when she answered the radio. Tim and Ross had gone out to check another trap and we were waiting to see what was in there. It was another swamp wallaby. I went to bed hoping to be rung with the news of a wombat but it was another night without reward.
Yesterday, Tim H and Andrew visited our good neighbours the Dennis family at Walthum Station. The southern portion of Epping Forest National Park had been previously part of Walthum and it was in large part due to the Dennis family's long history of good land management that the northern hairy-nosed wombat colony persisted there whilst they perished elsewhere. We will be using their airstrip as the departure point in July. It is a very short 10 minute drive from the park boundary.
Tonight is the last night of trapping prior to the reintroduction. I hope to get not much sleep because we trap 3 female wombats and the team wakes me each time with news (well a girl has got to dream!). The crew will be there till Saturday pulling the traps out and then head home for a well deserved break.
Wednesday 27 May 2009
Another night passed without northern hairy-nosed wombats in our traps. There is plenty of evidence in the form of dung that we are targeting active burrows.
Two nights left in this trapping trip and another female wombat would be good.
Tuesday May 26 2009
No wombats today. Three more trapping nights left in this trip.
Monday 25 May 2009
Only three swamp wallabies trapped last night. Early in the evening there was a slight breeze though it was still and the sky completely clear by 2 am. It felt mild until about 9 am this morning.
Last night a wombat dug under the trap at one of the burrows we believe is being used by a female adding weight to my theory regarding the difference in trapping effort required to capture females. When we are less pressed for time it would be interesting to do an analysis of trapping success by gender.
Our collection of dung grows though we have reverted to freezing them.
We continue to track the radio collared wombats and that is going well. The signal from one of the sub-adult males is not coming through however we have video footage of him foraging around the feed and water station 13. He looks to be in good health and in no distress with the collar.
Sunday 24 May 2009
Last night we trapped a big beefy veteran who was first trapped in 1988, identified as M32. His body condition score was 2.5/5 and he weighed 30.8kg. His ribs and backbone were more prominent than the well covered female of last night and he had a tear in his ear. Characteristic of most northern hairy nosed wombats, he was very calm in the trap and when we handled him.
Wombats have also been seen on the road over the last few nights.
Photo DERM
Saturday 23 May 2009
It was a case of being excited and disappointed at the same time.
A female wombat was trapped last night. She was 31.2kgs and had a body condition score of 4 out of 5.
What she also had was a pouch young; that is a baby wombat. This is only about the 5th pouch young we have seen in the 35 years that Epping has been a National Park. We could see the pouch young's nose twitching as if it say what is going on here as we opened her mum's pouch. Though still a baby, the pouch young has her own pouch which meant that determining her gender was straight forward. Though she hasn't any obvious fur, her whiskers are developing around her muzzle and her two top small incisors have just emerged. We estimate that she is about 12 weeks old. This was so exciting that we took pictures but left the video camera in the vehicle.
Because the translocation will stress the animals we move and we did not want to put the lactating mother and pouch young at risk, we didn't radio collar her and she will remain at Epping this year. So the disappointment is that there was no net gain for the reintroduction program.
Pouch young, photo DERM
Friday 22 May 2009
Another night without reward for effort: no wombats were trapped last night.
This morning, 5 of the crew are out collecting wombat scats while they are still fresh. We are collecting scats to scatter around the starter burrows at the Richard Underwood Nature Refuge. This will provide scent of other wombats for those that we translocate and is part of making the site as least threatening as possible. To date we have been freezing the scats, but one of the best cooks in the crew suggested we cryovac them. This should keep them fresher and reduce our problems with freezer space.
Photo DERM
Thursday 21 May 2009
The second night of this trapping session and no wombats to report. Some light rain played tricks with the electronics and we were called out on some false alarms, traps not set off but the signal triggered.
Yesterday between fixing the fence and dodging some light rain, the crew put out a further 19 traps. We are determining where the traps will go by using the information from the DNA hair census showing which burrows females had used. As part of life's synchronicity as we were setting the traps, the Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, the Hon. Kate Jones was addressing Queensland's parliament announcing the results of the hair census. The official count is that there are now 138 northern hairy-nosed wombats as at the time of the census.Thanks are due to the Wombat Foundation and FAME (Foundation for Australia's Most Endangered Animals) who sponsored the sampling and the analysis of the hair census.
Wednesday 20 May 2009
As the south-east of Queensland is awash with rain, it is a foggy morning at Epping Forest National Park (Scientific) and there is a fair amount of dew on the ground.
Some of the crew arrived late Monday and managed to put out 9 traps yesterday. No wombats were caught however an echidna and a swamp wallaby were trapped.
Fortunately, this morning Andrew noticed a breach of the predator-proof fence. It appears as if a large kangaroo has hit the fence and popped some of the rivets attaching it to one of the uprights and leaving a bow in the fence where it hit. The fence is still attached at ground level and there is no evidence (by tracks or enough space in the fencing) that any animal has got in that way. There is also no sign of the kangaroo or blood on the wire, so it was unlikely to have been seriously hurt. The fence is being fixed now and we will increase our surveillance for wild dog tracks as well as the routine sand pads we have in place.
See also Trapping Session One
See also Trapping Session Two
Last updated: 29 May 2009