A hundred years ago, the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat was found in Queensland, NSW and Victoria. 

Now it is one of the rarest mammals in the world, rarer than pandas, and only one small population remains.

What has caused this drastic decline? Humans.

The wombat lived in arid areas. Wombats can live on very little food. But white people brought cattle and sheep which ate the grasses that had fed the wombats in these dry areas. 

The cattle and sheep also trampled in the burrows, trapping the wombats underground where they died slowly of starvation.

White people have also allowed their dogs to go wild and they kill wombats, especially young ones.

In the 1970s the number of Northern Hairy-nosed Wombats had dropped to between 60 and 70 individuals.

Now cattle and sheep have been fenced out of Epping Forest, the last place where they survive. 

They breed very slowly. Their numbers are very slowly rising; there may now be 170 individuals. 

Our local ones are Bare-nosed Wombats.  The area in Australia which they inhabit has also shrunk drastically. Again it is humans who are the cause. 

Many are killed on the roads. Others are shot by farmers.

Our wonderful wombats deserve to be understood and cared for, while we still have them. Threatened Species Week is on at Potoroo Palace, September  5-11.

I find it amusing that the NSW Department of Planning and Environment has refused rezoning approval on one point that Bega is the major regional centre.

Take a drive after lunch on weekends and you will see how much of a hub it is! A ghost town.

Time we accept the need for progress, get with the times like any progressive region and support investment and infrastructure projects that create employment and services much needed in our remote location.

My objections to the “science” behind mankind driven climate change:

The greenhouse effect theory – i.e. upwelling/down welling/”back” radiation – violates conservation of energy and thermodynamic laws. Yes, it really does!

Not that it matters because the theory actually does not do anything, i.e. no net change in radiative balance at the ToA, per NASA 100km.

The notion that the earth is 33C warmer with an atmosphere than without is incorrect. The conditions postulated for the “no atmosphere” scenario are quite obviously with an atmosphere.

The true explanation for the prevailing surface temperature, heat transfer’s most fundamental equation Q = U * A * dT, is ignored.

The Stephan Boltzmann ideal black body equation is incorrectly applied by ignoring the theory’s limitations and conditions, e.g. a surface, no conduction/convection, i.e. a vacuum, emissivity, gas density, tropospheric temperatures, etc.

The eccentricity of the earth’s orbit causes a TSI fluctuation, apehelion to perihelion, +/- 45 W/m^2, 50 times greater than the atmospheric heating due to CO2. Natural variations such as eccentricity, albedo, water vapor, vegetation and so on, are orders of magnitude more influential over the climate than GHGs/CO2.

(I might be unqualified to offer an opinion since I’m not a food editor, unemployed standup comic, massage therapist, nematologist, or fresh out of journalism school.)