Fatty Gets Stuck in Pot

Overweight wombat needs rescuing after getting stuck in a flower pot

Last updated at 15:33pm on 27th December 2007

Wombats, those burly beasts from Australia, are renowned for their digging prowess.

But when baby Peaches could not find any decent earth to practice in at her carer's wildlife rehabilitation centre, she set to work on the flower pots.

She started digging into the earth in carer Shirley Lack's verandah pots, uprooting all the plants and breaking a few pots in the process.

The noise woke up Shirley at her home in the wildlife centre in the town of Tomerong, north of Sydney.

Hurrying out in her nightgown, she caught four-month-old Peaches in the act – pushing her nose deep down into one large pot and clawing out the roots of one of Shirley's prize camellias.

Shirley, who has been caring for orphaned wildlife at the centre for the past 20 years, said: "I let the wombats, young and old, out of their enclosure at night so they can graze on the grass for a few hours.

"They can't get out of the centre itself because the fences are sunk deep into the ground.

"Whether Peaches had had a go at escaping I don't know, but she certainly decided she had had enough of grazing with the other wombats and targeted the pot plants.

"She went through them one by one, tearing out the flowers and sticking her nose deep down into the earth.

"I'm quite used to them getting up to all kinds of mischief, like chewing up old shoes, but this is the first time one of them has attacked the flower pots."

Shirley cares for wombats that have been injured by cars, including babies whose mothers have been killed, leaving the young still alive in the pouch.

Like kangaroos, wombats carry their young in pouches but, unlike roos, the pouches face backwards, so they don't get filled with earth when the mother starts digging.

In the wild, they live in burrows which can be up to 60ft long and more than 12ft deep. They tend to stay in the burrows during the day, being kept warm in winter and cool in summer and, being of a sociable disposition, are happy to share their underground home with other wombats.

But there was no chance that Peaches would be inviting anyone to move in to one of her claimed flower pots – there just wasn't enough room.