At Caversham Wildlife Park, we are committed to giving back and supporting the wider conservation community. As part of this commitment, funds from the Wombat Photo experience tickets are set aside to be donated to a reputable wildlife conservation organisation.
This donation goes to the Wombat Hilton!
Manfred Heide started raising Wombats in 1976 with his late wife Helen on their property in the hills above Adelaide in South Australia. 50 years later they have helped hundreds of wombats, from orphan joeys to adults injured in car strikes.
Manfred currently houses a number of permanent residents on his hills property including Echidnas, Bettongs and Kangaroos, but of course Wombats are his main focus and have use of over 100m of artificial burrow systems around the property, including a den under the office of his aptly named “Wombat Hilton”.
In 1985 Manfred joined forces with DEWNR (Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources in South Australia) and bought The Wombat Program to life. The program was created to help co-ordinate carers and offer support by the use of a program coordinator of which Manfred took the wheel. The program is funded almost entirely by donation and the money is used to supply the bottles, teats, milk powder and other essentials to raise the joeys.
The program also helps find homes for the joeys once they are weaned. Since the program started, hundreds of orphans have found homes across Australia in wildlife parks, zoos and education centres. Longleat in the UK became the home of 2 lucky orphans in 2018, the first international organization to receive wombats through the program. Organisations are required to donate to the program in order to acquire animals, in turn helping buy supplies for the next season’s joeys.
In 1989 Caversham Wildlife Park received our first Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats from Manfred, a weaned young pair who were named “Fred” and “Marian”. This pair became a very important part of the park producing a number of joeys including the one and only late “Big Bubs”.
Over the last 37 years, we have received many Hairy-Nosed and Bare-Nosed Wombats from the Wombat Hilton program, including Ben, Harry, Dozer, Holly, Eddie, Natta, Neil, Harry Jnr, Chloe, Boo, Matilda, Asha, Roger, Judie and Charlie.
It is always an honour to donate to Wombat Hilton to support their invaluable work. And it brings us joy to this time donate $11,597 which will go a long way in supporting the program carers, to care for vulnerable wombats.
