For more than 20 years Trowunna Wildlife park has been a "soft" release site for wombats. Soft release means to slowly introduce an animal to the wild rather than hard release which means to move an animal from human care straight into the wild. For wombats soft release works the best.
A wombat usually will need rescuing because the mother gets hit by a careless driver and she ends up as road kill. The young are often still alive in the pouch and are bought to the park where they are bottle feed low lactose milk and kept in an artificial pouch sometimes a beanie. We wean the wombat off milk, but still give them a lot of attention.
Wombats are encouraged to walk around the park with a keeper where they learn to live outside an enclosure. Wombats are solitary animals and have the instinct to not want cuddles and attention after a certain age. When we see signs of independence we let them run around the park by themselves. At night we can observe them, see if they are putting on weight, if the are healthy and that they are not in any trouble. Half way between park and freedom is the park gift shop and under this building is the "wombat motel rooms", a network of burrows from past wombats that provide a short term place to stay during the day. Both sides of the park there is 20 acres of natural bush and the wombats are then free to wander around in.

 

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