Several posts claiming that wombat have been act like rescue worker during the Australian wildfire have go viral over the last week , with some of them claiming that the animals are " shepherd " smaller animals into their burrows .
The spot loosely say that wombats have been " sharing " their tunnel with other mammals , and sometimes state that they ’re doing more to serve with the crisis than the Australian government .
Or else remarking that they had n’t realize quite how fricking Brobdingnagian wombat are .
Greenpeace New Zealand spell that there are " reports from Australia that numberless small animals have run death because wombat , unusually , opted to share their massive complex tunnel . Even reports that they have been detect exhibiting ' shepherding behavior ' . "
Which all sound a small bit too Disney , does n’t it ? So is there any truth to these claims ?
Well , first off , the call that wombat have been observed herd smaller animate being to refuge is not substantiated . Greenpeace themselves laterposted an updatecrossing out account of shepherding demeanor with the apology " we shared this from a social medium billet from Australia , but it turns out it ’s not true " .
Jackie French , author and film director of The Wombat Foundation , severalize IFLScience she was skeptical of claim of shepherding .
" wombat are extremely short - sighted . They focus mostly on food and dirt . It would be intemperate for them to see well enough to shepherd , nor have I seen one do so . "
However , she is n’t give the axe the possible action entirely .
" Wombat conduct is usually super limited – eat , rest , scratch – but they are capable of over-the-top ingenuity in the uncommon meter it ’s needed . I ’d have dismissed the shepherding claim altogether if I had n’t know a wombat who decided to make protagonist with me four decades ago , and showed me around the bush . But he did n’t shepherd – he just wait , looking around to see if I followed . Baby wombat follow their mothers by trying to touch them at all times – the mother do n’t shepherd their young as a dog might do .
" It ’s improbable any shepherding would be necessary . [ Other animals ] would recognise the wombat warrens existed and are intelligent enough to seek shelter . "
But could they be sharing burrows ?
Wombats make complex burrows , often with multiple chambers and entree . And they ’re huge , with some of them stretchingover 100 meters(330 feet ) . French told theCanberra Timesthat the burrows are cryptical and well - ventilated enough to protect them from the fires , and that these commonly nongregarious creatures had been partake the burrows with each other for some six weeks now .
But sharing with other species ? Using tv camera traps , University of Melbourne zoological science student have captured other metal money use wombat burrows .
Before you start get up with a sitcom based on mismatched living agreement between a koala bear and a wombat , we should point out that the burrow are so large and complex it ’s unlikely that the fauna met , and the little animals would n’t have perplex around long if they had .
“ wombat can be a fleck cantankerous , " Dr Kath Handasyde , an expert in native mammal ecology and physiology , told theUniversity of Melbourne . If the koala had bump the wombat , it would in all likelihood have been chamfer out and would n’t have been anywhere virtually as relaxed as we can see in the exposure . "
However , during dire circumstances , Jackie French tell that that might be different .
" I ’ve find wombats share their burrows in time of crisis with other wombats , snakes , quolls , possums , bandicoots , echidnas , bettong and possibly other small beast , " she recount IFLScience .
" Wallabies will shelter in wombat burrow too , but only those with larger entrances , and they do n’t seem to go far down them , but as I ’ve never partake a wombat tunnel in a fervency I ca n’t tell what else may have been down there , only see what has emerged or vanished into a warren .
" The animals here as I write this are sharing nutrient bowl at the food and water supply post , and wombat will countenance others to share their tunnel in danger , but usually ( not always ) only in risk , but this seems to be more interspecies margin in extremis , not shepherd . "
So , in short , it’spossiblethat fauna are shelter in wombat burrows and that wombats would endure them , but it ’s likely that if that is happening they were n’t shepherd there , and that the animals take flight there themselves .
