Jenny Cambers-Smith has turned her Crabtree farm into a wildlife haven

Fighting wombats, playful possums and devils climbing trees – hidden cameras capture the wild side of life on a Huon Valley farm. WHAT TASSIE CRITTERS GET UP TO AT NIGHT >>

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FIGHTING wombats, playful possums and devils climbing trees – Jenny Cambers-Smith is continually amazed by the lives her wildlife companions lead after dark.

Mrs Cambers-Smith’s 32 hectare property at Crabtree has become a haven for native animals.

With her husband Bronte, she has spent the past 16 years regenerating the farm to a more natural state.

Jenny Cambers-Smith regenerated property at the top of Crabtree. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

“It was pretty well just grazed all over, but not looked after at all, there were a huge amount of invasive weeds including BlackBerries, Californian thistles which we have been eradicating over the years,” she said.

Jenny Cambers-Smith of Crabtree with some trail motion cameras that she uses to capture footage of native wildlife that shares her family's regenerated property at the top of Crabtree. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

“We’ve planted 1500 trees, a mix of natives and other varieties, and we’ve dug six dams.”

Now the animals are returning in huge numbers.

“There are heaps more birds since we’ve been here,” Mrs Cambers-Smith said.

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“We didn’t see any to begin with, and now we have so many we have seven wombat gates.

“Just about anywhere we put up a camera we get devils.”

For the past few years Mrs Cambers-Smith has been capturing the day and night time habits of animals on motion sensor cameras, sharing the footage on her Taswildlife website and Facebook page.

Wombat. Picture taken with a trailcam. Picture: JENNY CAMBERS-SMITH

The hidden cameras have given her an insight into natural animal behaviour humans rarely see.

This has included fighting wombats, devils and quolls climbing trees, the antics of platypus and interactions between mothers and babies.

“When you see a mother wombat and baby wombat interacting or a possum mother and its baby playing, don’t think of them as pests,” she said.

“I’m always excited about what I’ll find on an SD card.”

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Posted by Taswildlife.com on Saturday, 27 June 2020