Would you shoot a wombat? In Taralga, the answer isn't as simple as you'd think
There's a special pen where rescued common — or bare-nosed — wombats nibble on high-carb dinners.
The fences have wombat doors built into them and artificial wombat burrows — tin shelters — pepper the rolling green hills.
"I think they're beautiful animals … and we're so lucky to have them," 67-year-old wildlife carer Dianna says.
WARNING: This story contains graphic details which may be disturbing for some readers.
But here in the Southern Tablelands, south west of Sydney, not everyone agrees.
In these parts it's not unheard of for wombats to turn up with bullet holes in their heads.
It is an offence under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 to harm native animals without a licence.
People found guilty of this crime face prison time and significant fines.
But these killings are rarely condemned.
In fact, for sticking up for the wombats, Dianna's become a target of ridicule and threats.
"I've had a screwdriver through the side of my tyres," she says.
It was a battle she didn't expect to be having when she and her husband retired just outside the sleepy town of Taralga, 13 years ago.
A wombat, found by Dianna Bisset, was shot behind the ear. ( Supplied: Rocklily Wombats )
Only in rare cases can NSW landowners obtain a licence to harm a wombat. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
In her fight to save the wombats, Dianna didn't realise others in the region had been battling for years on the opposite side.
"We didn't expect the reactions we've got," Dianna says.
"We know they bulldoze them, we know they blow them up.
"It's very sad, I sometimes wish I'd been in a town that wasn't so back in the 50's."
'Wombat cuddlers' v 'wombat shooters'
The sign that welcomes drivers to Taralga proudly reads 'circa 1820'.
Local farmer Stirling Dixon, who's mates with Dianna, says the sign is the key to understanding the conflict she has found herself in.
"When [settlers] arrived here, if we didn't bring it, if it didn't make you money, it was considered no good," the 78-year-old says.
"That colonial mentality still prevails."
Stirling Dixon is friends with people on both sides of the wombat debate. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
Stirling's been farming since he was a boy. He has a quick smile and an infectious laugh.
But his face becomes serious when he talks about how wombats have divided this community.
He describes the conflict as being between "wombat cuddlers", people like Dianna who are new to the area and have progressive views, and "wombat shooters", farmers who see wombats as a destructive pest.
"You try and find neutral ground but underneath, we both know one's a bloody wombat cuddler and the other one's a wombat shooter."
Stirling doesn't kill wombats, but they do cause damage on his property.
As his kelpie, Bloss, climbs out of a wombat burrow next to his outhouse, he explains why they can be a problem.
"They don't seem to be rare and they seem to love to dig under things that you care about, like your loading ramp, your gates, your house."
"They can be annoying … just to fix this would cost me a fair bit of time and money."
From his perspective, both sides of this beef have valid points, and he says neither side is likely to back down.
For the farmers, it's financial.
"It's their sacred entitlement to make a living, regardless of the consequences."
For Dianna, it's moral. The wombats are living creatures.
Stirling Dixon says his community is divided over the best way to live alongside wombats. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
"Dianna doesn't take a step back. She's full of courage and that gets her in trouble," he says.
"[She] is a person who's completely imbued with kindness towards animals.
"She just can't fathom that people behave the way towards animals."
'Just so different from the city'
When Dianna and her husband Warwick first moved to the Southern Tablelands in 2012, they were met with open arms.
Dianna joined an art group, a book club and had friends across the region.
Dianna and Warwick Bisset at their property just outside Taralga. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
She was particularly struck by how harmonious the place was, when she handed out how-to-vote cards for the Greens one election day.
"If you wanted to go to the loo you could leave the cards and [other parties' volunteers] said 'oh no, we'll give them out'.
"It was just so different from the city."
So Dianna and Warwick sunk their roots in and built a beautiful house deep in the bush.
They were happy.
"We call ourselves gently lost. Especially when we get a full mist here and we just go, 'aah, we're gently lost'."
But once they started caring for wombats, things changed.
It was just little things at first.
They were made fun of on social media.
"We've been called hippies, super greens … 'the wombat lady'."
A wombat peeks through a crack in a doorway. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
Two bare-nosed wombats, Keith and Patty Cake, in a pen on Dianna and Warwick's property. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
A wombat near Wombeyan Caves in the New South Wales' Central Tablelands. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
But the name-calling took a turn for the worse, when they challenged a proposal to upgrade Wombeyan Caves Road.
These caves are the biggest tourist draw in the region. Tens of thousands of people visit them every year.
But the road down to them, which threads through beautiful bushland near Dianna's house, is dangerous and of poor quality.
In 2021, the Upper Lachlan Shire Council got funding to do a big upgrade. But, according to Dianna, the proposal was never put to public consultation.
One day, as she drove into town, she was met with a scene of destruction.
"This 20-tonne machine is just picking up big bits of tree, putting it in a pile, and just closing the claws. And just smashing it up," she said.
"Just smashing it, smashing it, smashing it."
As a wildlife carer, she knew what lived in that bushland: wombats, as well as endangered species of goannas, microbats and gliders.
In her eyes, their habitat was being flattened.
So, she called the council and got hold of the environmental report, and began to complain.
After significant to-and-froing, and the accidental destruction of a marked wombat burrow, the council paused the project while they worked through various issues.
Taralga is home to just over 400 people, according to the 2021 Census. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
Wombeyan Caves is one of the area's most popular tourism destinations. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
The council committed to upgrade the road to Wombeyan Caves. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
Work slowly resumed, and the upgraded road now stretches to six kilometres.
In a statement, Upper Lachlan Shire said it complied with all relevant environmental legislation and processes, and that the major works have been completed.
It said a qualified ecologist approved all clearing to minimise impact on fauna and flora and any wombat burrows identified were inactive.
But many locals believe the new road falls short of what was originally promised.
In town, Dianna and Warwick were blamed for slowing down the roadworks.
The 'wombat lady' is costing the region jobs and tourism dollars, all for the sake of a few animals, was a refrain she heard.
"I had some lovely people post on the local community Facebook to not serve me in town, and it was pretty disgusting," she said.
She began to feel like a leper.
"I was doing some face painting because someone couldn't do it at a Christmas event, and I had kids being dragged off my queue and put on the other queue because I was doing it."
Around town, friendliness was replaced by obscure climate-change jokes at her expense.
As for the farmers, it only made them dislike her more.
Damage worth 'quarter of a million bucks'
Chris Croker's family has been farming in the Southern Tablelands for close to 200 years.
"When my father grew up here there were never any wombats. I remember seeing a wombat hole as a kid, which was over 50 years ago, and it was a novelty," he says.
Chris has never given Dianna any grief and he says he doesn't shoot wombats. But he thinks farmers should be able to.
He currently has several running amok on his property.
One of them has dug a large burrow in the centre of his paddock.
Farmer Chris Croker says he has several wombats running wild on his Southern Tablelands property. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
Wombats push their way through fences, damaging the bottom of them. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
Chris Croker's sheep farm. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
Chris says it's a serious safety issue for cars and quad bikes.
"If you come down there on a bike then bang," he says.
"If you're coming out here at night, you might have a cow that's in trouble, and you're riding across there and if you were to hit it with any sort of pace you could roll it on top of yourself."
Further down his property is another issue.
"That was started by a wombat," Chris says pointing at a mesh fence.
Chris, who's trying to keep his stock in and feral pests out, says the holes pose huge problems.
Chris Croker stands above a creek bed on his property. He's concerned erosion caused by wombats will turn it into a gully. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
"The next thing that comes through there will be pigs or kangaroos … and your fence gets worse and worse."
Down at the bottom of his property, near Blade of Grass Creek, dozens of wombat burrows dot the creek's bank.
"What happens is the wombats dig a hole and then water gets in so they dig another hole," he explains.
"When you get a flood, water goes in there and they come out [and dig more holes].
"If I came and did that with a tractor, I'd have the EPA after me [asking] 'what are you doing digging in a waterway?'"
Chris believes without serious intervention this whole area will eventually become a gully.
That means he'll have less usable farmland.
"I've tried to find funding to help repair this, and there's been none available," he said.
"I had one quote on it, which was about a quarter of a million bucks."
That's money he doesn't have.
Chris Croker is a farmer from New South Wales Southern Tablelands. He says he doesn't kill wombats, but thinks it is necessary in some cases. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
In rare cases in NSW, landowners can obtain a licence to harm a wombat, if they can show evidence that they are a threat to public safety, are damaging property or causing economic hardship.
The applicant must also be able to demonstrate they've exhausted all other non-lethal options.
Chris thinks it should be up to the farmer, not bureaucrats at government agencies.
"They really need to allow the farmers to do what they have to do," he says.
"I can already hear the greenies going 'oh, what do you mean, they belong there'.
"They're a native animal, yeah …[but] keeping the population under control is something that needs doing.
"To think that they're just a cute, cuddly animal is a fantasy."
What to do with problematic wombats?
Dianna believes there are more humane solutions to the wombat problem that don't involve rifles.
"So this is a simple gate that's been made out of found materials on any farm," she said.
Dianna Bisset constructed a wombat gate in the fence to allow their passage through without causing destruction. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
Warwick and Dianna Bisset designed this mange treatment contraption. It tips Bravecto on their back when they enter the burrow. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
Warwick Bisset opens the wooden gate on a wombat enclosure. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
She says the wooden flap is just heavy enough to deter the animals farmers don't want on their land.
"Foxes don't go through them, dogs don't go through them, pigs don't go through them," she said.
"For the farmer, baby lambs will not go through them, so it's gonna keep their lambs safe."
Chris Croker was less enthusiastic.
"Have you ever tried to talk to a wombat and say, 'Can you go through that door, please'?"
"I'm not saying all ideas are stupid, but … the practicality of it … just doesn't work for a business that we are trying to run here."
In a few months, Dianna will release wombats Keith and Patty Cake, who were found on the road beside their squashed mothers.
Keith had no fur and weighed just 500 grams. Patty Cake was found trying to get in its mother's decomposing pouch.
Keith weighed just 500 grams when he was found. In spring, he will slowly be released into the wild. ( Supplied: Rocklily Wombats )
Rules prevent wombats being released into national parks, but Diana says she tries to free the animals as far from farms as possible.
For many, releasing these wombats might sound like a success story.
But Chris says there should be more regulation on where they end up.
"There's no rules on where they let them go," he says.
"They should be put back in areas they come from, not in some other foreign area and just spreading the problem for everyone else."
'We're here to stay'
Dianna and Warwick like to spend the last part of their days watching the sun go down from their balcony.
"The last light on the hill here is just amazing," she says.
"It's just got a lovely orangey golden glow."
Dianna Bisset is happy overlooking her beloved hilly landscape. ( ABC News: Jack Fisher )
Despite the tranquil scene, she's troubled.
"We're running out of steam, so everyone can be happy about that," she says.
But she's still got a bit of fight left. If she doesn't stick up for wombats, who will?
"We're doing our thing out here and if the town is rejecting us to a degree, well, we'll just keep doing what we're doing here.
"We're here to stay."
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