Wombat campaigners try to save 200 animals from extermination
Despite enduring Australia’s worst bushfire summer in decades, a colony of wombats now face extermination in an approved cull on the Yorke Peninsula.
SA News
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The planned killing of an entire Yorke Peninsula colony of 200 wombats has caused alarm in the environmental and indigenous communities.
Greens MLC Tammy Franks will raise the issue in State Parliament today and said the Environment Department had approved the shooting of the “pest colony” but should revoke the decision.
The plan may yet be stopped because the farmer leases the land from the Aboriginal Lands Trust, the Parliamentary committee for which meets in State Parliament today with Ms Franks as a member.
Traditional Owner and tourism operator Quenten Agius raised the alarm after learning the State Government’s SA-wide indigenous body the Aboriginal Lands trust had approval from the State Government to kill the “major breeding colony”.
Mr Agius said the community was angry the animals would be killed only because as stated in the application they were damaging the farmer’s equipment when he “runs them over” while doing his work.
“The brutality has disgusted our community,’’ Mr Agius said.
“The community has not been consulted so I am speaking out as a Traditional Owner for those with no voice, and the community residents.
“We are connected to these animals, they feature in our cultural knowledge of evolution. Like us, these animals have lived on the land for thousands of years and we need everyone’s help to protect them from genocide. It must be stopped before it happens.”
The department would only confirm that a permit had been issued.
“The owner of Point Pearce, Aboriginal Lands Trust (ALT), applied for and received a permit for the humane destruction of wombats,’’ a spokesman said.
“For any further information you will need to contact the permit holder.”
The spokesman defended the department and farmer’s position: “The National Parks and Wildlife Act allows for permits to be provided for the destruction of native animals where those animals are damaging, or are likely to damage, the environment, crops, stock, property or environmental amenity, or are posing a safety risk or hazard to people or industry”.
The extermination approval comes despite an outpouring of sympathy for a large number of wombats killed during Australia’s horror fire season and the controversial stoning of one animal near Ceduna last year, a video of which went viral on social media.
The department recommended killing method is shooting, with burrows blown up afterwards, but environmentalists have also complained that this method leads to some animals being buried alive.
Ms Franks said she had talked to the community which wanted political leaders to take up their cause.
“With this permit for 200 wombats to be culled then that will make 810 animals killed over five years which is an extraordinarily high number,’’ she said.
“There is already a complaint with the department over some animals which were said to have been killed on the same property, and whether there was a permit for that.
“This is Aboriginal land and they have not been consulted, and yet the community must be consulted before a permit is approved under the rules.’’
Mr Agius said twelve wombats were illegally shot in the area recently with photographic evidence posted online by a group of traditional owners.
He estimated only 640 hairy-nosed wombats are left on the Yorke Peninsula and that wiping out 200 from the Point Pearce breeding grounds would put the local colony on the verge of extinction.
“If hundreds of wombats are massacred, our children may never get the chance to see a wild living wombat. It makes me ill to think these wombats are going to be slaughtered,’’ he said.
Aboriginal Lands Trust spokesman John Chester said it was acting on strong requests from the Point Pearce indigenous community to act on the wombat problem.
“They are also not happy with Mr Agius’s comments,” he said.
“We estimate there are 1300 warrens and an average of three animals per warren so something had to be done.”