Wombats Hailed as Heroes for Digging Down Under, Revealing Water Well During Drought

In New South Wales, local wombats are helping dozens of other species find water as the country burns under a severe drought.

Cuddly looking animals invaded Ted Finnie’s meat farm and began digging an underground tunnel to a hidden water source, local news reports.

According to ABC Australia, the farm is 30 kilometers (19 miles) down the Hunter Valley, which has only seen a hint of rain in the last three years.

After such a long period, the relentless wombat tunnel had created a crater 20 meters (65.6 feet) in diameter and four meters (13 feet) deep.

“As the crater dried up due to the drought, the wombats dug up to get closer to the water, so they went a bit underground,” Finnie told local reporters, who also reported seeing kangaroos, kangaroos and kangaroos. .

Then Hunter Region Land Care Network Placing a camera trap on the “Wombat Soak” as he called it, Finnie found that it also attracted a host of other animals, including birds, goannas, possums, echidnas, and emus.

Surprisingly, there has never been a recorded case of wombats digging for water, says biologist Julie Old, who began studying the site. Wombats dig their burrows along streams or small ditches under trees, where the roots will add to the stability of the burrow. Wombat Soak does not have any of these properties.

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“We often call wombats ecological engineers because they are digging burrows and creating a habitat for other animals,” Old told ABC Australia. Some animals have even been seen sharing burrows, albeit not in a very friendly way, with the normally solitary wombat.

This was the case during fire season when many wombats excavate They were found to contain other species sheltered from the flames.

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Thomas Hobbes, who described nature as red with teeth and claws, clearly never met a wombat, a species that is now hailed as heroes for helping to save lives in these difficult conditions.

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