Kodiak 2015 soft released at 2017

Kodiak 215.10.2015  soft released at 2017

Kodiaks mum was hit on the road and he was rescued from her pouch, a big joey at 5kg. Jules was named after the ranger who rescued him at Wombeyan caves. Tourists reported a bad smell upstream of a canyon swimming hole, so Jules, the ranger, swam up and found that mum had fallen in and died. Jules, the joey, was under weight, tick-infested and very feisty but she bought him to us. He remained a very bitey boy for some time but finally settled down in a group of 4 wombats.

Kodiak, with a toothy grin, was part of the larger group of 5 who were part of the great escape. They all had sharp little teeth used in play-attack as they would jump and tumble with us.We managed to teach them to play-attack each other rather than us. Not an easy thing to teach. We have coloured strings draped above our nursery wombatorium to discourage the wedge-tailed eagles who seemed to be circling whenever these little ones were out. The strings are kept about 1.2m apart and have worked so far

Kodiak came in at 5kg in 2015 and was soft released here in late 2016, so he's now 11-12 years old and still seen on our many wildlife cameras from time to time. He's involved in screaming matches, along with Starman, against Frankie, who backs off the way he came: it's very funny. He did return looking good after the 2019/20 fires, and lucked out to find a bucket of sweet potato on its way to the car for bushfire feed stations. Wombat boys seem to stay in their place of upbringing, which is unusual for marsupials.