Image from: http://ds-lands.com/animals/southern-hairy-nosed-wombat.html

Southern hairy nosed wombats are a South Australian icon and are unfortunately becoming endangered. This video explains some of the problems our wombats are experiencing and comes with a transcript – This short news report serves as a useful English listening and reading resource: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3582089.htm

Also, here is a copy of the transcript (also featured on the website) with useful vocabulary and phrasal verbs in bold and their definitions listed below the article.

Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Australia has three species of wombat and the Southern Hairy-Nosed is considered the most robust. But it’s seeing a drop-off in numbers, partly caused by an increase in a mysterious illness that seems linked to toxic plants. Mike Sexton reports.

MIKE SEXTON, REPORTER: It’s no surprise the Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat is known as the bulldozer of the bush. The condensed ball of muscle is superbly adapted for surviving the semi-arid country it inhabits, from the Nullarbor Plain to the Murray River.

DAVID TAGGART, UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE: They are as tough as nails, these guys. And I came from Victoria where it’s relatively green over east, and when I first arrived here, it happened to be in summer, and I saw all these wombats walking around and I thought, “What in the God’s name are these animals eating? They must be eating rocks.”

This is an adult Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat. They don’t get in much better nick than this. This male would be in the order of eight years old and it’d weigh approximately 28 kilos.

MIKE SEXTON: David Taggart from the University of Adelaide has been studying the marsupials for more than 20 years, during which he’s admired their ability to cope with boom and bust.

DAVID TAGGART: They put on all their condition in winter, spring and early summer and then that enables them to survive through the dry periods.

MIKE SEXTON: Which is why these images are so distressing. Despite two years of above average rainfall in southern Australia, these wombats in the Murraylands are effectively dying of starvation.

BRIGITTE STEVENS, WOMBAT AWARENESS FOUNDATION: This one here we noticed about five months ago that she was looking very, very poor and so she was actually one of the first wombats that we started to do support feeding for and she took to it straightaway.

MIKE SEXTON: Every week, Brigitte Stevens drives through an old pastoral lease an hour north of Adelaide dropping food parcels for wombats.

BRIGITTE STEVENS: The reason that we do that is because they just simply had nothing to eat and we just can’t catch and rehabilitate the amount of animals that are actually dying from this disease.

MIKE SEXTON: Driving around this lush country it’s hard to believe there isn’t enough for the wombats to live on, but a closer look shows since the property was destocked, it’s been overrun by weeds.

BRIGITTE STEVENS: Basically, all of this, like, succulenty-looking plant is actually onion weed and it covers thousands and thousands and thousands of acres and what the wombats are left are with these tiny, little single strands. So as you can see, there’s not a huge amount of food and the onion weed is just drowning out any chance for all of this native grass to come through.

MIKE SEXTON: Given the desperate situation, the wombats are eating the weeds, with disastrous consequences.

LUCY WOOLFORD, UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE: This wombat here, this is an adult wombat, but you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a hare or a rabbit. Normally these wombats should weigh sort of over 20 kilos, 24 kilos. This animal was only 10 kilos. This animal was – completely lost all of its hair. It was in the terminal stages of starvation.

MIKE SEXTON: Post-mortems conducted by veterinary pathologist Lucy Woolford show the diet of weeds is causing severe damage to the wombats. Hair loss has left the marsupials exposed to severe sunburn, while internally, the toxic plants are causing liver failure.

Is this something you’ve seen before?

LUCY WOOLFORD: Certainly we’ve seen it in domestic livestock. It’s not uncommon to see these kind of liver lesions secondary to grazing of toxic plants in horses, cattle and sheep. But I’ve not personally seen it in native wildlife, but I know that it has occurred in some of the kangaroo and wallaby species interstate.

MIKE SEXTON: So what’s happened to this wombat?

BRIGITTE STEVENS: This little girl is obviously one of the little animals that has been affected by the disease. And she came in extremely emaciated. And as you can see now, she’s put on quite a bit of weight, but her hair hasn’t started coming back through yet.

MIKE SEXTON: Brigitte Stevens takes a hands-on approach to helping wombats, turning a farm near Murray Bridge into a kind of halfway house for Southern Hairy-Noses. Most of the 29 animals she cares for are being restored to health through a diet of pureed sweet potato.

BRIGITTE STEVENS: She’d drink two, three, four of these a day. Poor bugger. Just starving.

MIKE SEXTON: Away from the intensive short-term fix, David Taggart believes the long-term survival of the marsupials is hinged on land use. His modelling of what could happen if climate change predictions come about later this century suggests the wombats could be forced out of their traditional areas.

DAVID TAGGART: We’re getting farmers telling us that they’re seeing wombat numbers increasing in areas they’ve always been traditionally low or where they’ve never been present before in their or their parents or their grandparents’ history. So, is a population moving or is it increasing on its periphery? These are all questions we’re trying to grapple with at the moment.

MIKE SEXTON: The fight to conserve the Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat has a high-profile backer in veteran environmentalist Bob Irwin.

Bob Irwin fears the wombats are at a tipping point and need strategic government planning with land owners to avoid them going the way of other species such as koalas and crocodiles in his native Queensland.

BOB IRWIN, ENVIRONMENTALIST: We almost lost both estuarine and freshwater crocodiles. They came that close to extinction. But the government at the time put in regulations and we saved them. And I – you know, I can see this happening with the Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat in this area.

MIKE SEXTON: In the meantime, as another summer approaches, Brigitte Stevens will continue her feeding program and advocating for long-term change to create the right kind of bush for the bulldozers.

BRIGITTE STEVENS: Wombats are vital. You know, the wombat burrows actually provide an environment for so many different species that are reliant in that area on the wombats for survival. So if we see the wombats dying out, we’re gonna see a whole heap of other species going down with them.

LEIGH SALES: I hope not! Mike Sexton reporting.

VOCABULARY

Consider  verb; to regard as or deem to be

Drop off  noun; fall or diminish

Arid  adj; barren or unproductive because of lack of moisture

Nick  adj; condition, state

Boom and Bust.   adj; characteristic of a period of prosperity followed by a depression

Lush   adj; luxuriant; succulent; tender and juicy

Live onphrasal verb; to feed or subsist (usually followed by on  or upon  ): to live on rice and bananas.

Destock verb; reduce the amount of something

Sort of  a. ( adverb ) in some way or other; as it were; rather                  b. ( sentence substitute ) used to express reservation or qualified assent: I’m only                               joking. Sort of

Post Mortem  noun; Examination of a cadaver to determine or confirm the cause of death

Marsupial  noun; mammals of which the females have a pouch (the marsupium) containing the teats where the young are fed and carried

Emaciated  adj; very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold

Hinged on  verb; depend on

Periphery noun; The outer limits or edge of an area or object

Backer    noun; A person, institution, or country that supports something, esp. financially.

Tipping Point   noun; the point at which an issue, idea, product, etc., crosses a certain threshhold and gains significant momentum, triggered by some minor factor or change

Reliant adj; relying on another for support

Whole Heap  a lot