An unfortunate increase in dead wombats on the Beechworth-Wodonga road brings their existence in our region to front of mind. How many are there? Is the local population increasing, or are they moving about for some other reason?

Wombats in our region are likely the Bare-nosed or Common wombat, Vombatus ursinus. A quick search for more information shows that actually, there is not a lot officially known about their distribution.

That’s something we can all chip in to remedy, with a relatively new wombat mapping tool called WomSAT. WomSAT is an online community project and resource for people to record sightings of wombats across the country. It’s very straightforward to add a sighting to the map.

By recording where you see wombats – dead or alive – and their burrows in your local area, a picture emerges of their distribution and abundance across the region. As the WomSAT site points out, “While you may see wombats every day, not everyone does. The more data we collect about wombats being seen all the time, or never, the better, as it provides evidence … something we realistically have no scientific records of.”

Recording wombat sightings is very easy! Check out the WomSAT website and mapping tool here.

Below is a snapshot of the current WomSAT wombat map for our region. Surely we have more to add?