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Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage Protection is implementing a major recovery program to help save the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat.

The Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat Recovery Plan 2004-2008 details the research and management actions required for recovery.

Research

Reproductive studies
Population monitoring
Behavioural studies
Dietary studies
Trapping studies

Management

Predator control
Fire management
Pasture improvement
Establish new populations
Education and information

 

The Wombat Foundation is assisting with the recovery program through its funding of research activities and management actions.

Hair Census

The Wombat Foundation funded the analysis of DNA from the 2007 hair census.

The hair census is an ingeniously simple way of estimating the number (and sex) of Northern Hairy-nosed Wombats.

Basically, a piece of double-sided sticky tape is placed at every known burrow entrance on the park.

Every morning for nine days, volunteers and QPWS staff walk the park collecting the tape and replacing it with fresh pieces. The tape that is collected then goes to the lab for analysis.

By analysing the hairs that are stuck to the tape, geneticists are able to determine the number of distinct individuals counted and what sex they are.

From this they can then estimate the current size of the population.


The very first Hair Census team


A taped burrow

Volunteers from the 2007 Hair Census collecting wombat hair