A member of the public called the WRIN phone and reported that they had sighted a wombat walking down a road on the outskirts of Kangaroo Flat! Member Jenny was sent out to rescue it but could not find anything resembling a wombat. She door knocked, left our WRIN cards and waited for an actual sighting of a wombat.
Later that day Jenny received a call to say the wombat was under one of the callers cars in their driveway and called to ask me to help her with the rescue and had asked our DEPI wildlife officer for advice on what to do. He said if it was a wombat and was not injured at all release it in a suitable wombat area. Because we don’t get a lot of wombats in Bendigo we took what we thought would be needed as our rescue gear, a heavy blanket, gloves and very large bin [and hoped it would be enough!].
We arrived to find, sure enough, an adult wombat under a car. After some poking and making lots of noise it just dug into the gravel drive and stayed wedged under the car. Plan ‘B’ was to start the car and hope it would frighten it out. Sure enough not long and out came a big wombat with a rush towards Jenny holding the blanket and me with the bin. Into the bin it went which must have looked like a safe. dark hiding place. We gently and slowly tipped the bin up and covered it with the blanket, quickly loaded wombat, bin, blanket, Jenny and me into the vehicle and drove to where it was to be checked and a release organised.
We asked the caller to check and call if he or any neighbours sighted a wombat again. So far no more sightings.