In the early 1980s, the total known population of northern hairy-nosed wombats on Earth was 35.
Thirty-five animals. All of them in a single patch of Queensland bushland, hemmed in by decades of habitat loss, drought, livestock grazing, and predation. The species was — by any reasonable measure — on the edge of oblivion.
In February 2026, three joeys were born at Powrunna State Forest in southwestern Queensland. It's a new site. It's a new colony. And it's evidence that one of the most painstaking conservation campaigns in Australian history is working.
**The Species That Nearly Vanished**
The northern hairy-nosed wombat (*Lasiorhinus krefftii*) is listed as Critically Endangered under both Australian law and the IUCN Red List. Once widespread across eastern Australia, the species was hammered by the same forces that reshaped the continent through the 19th and 20th centuries: pastoral farming that replaced native grasslands, competition with cattle and sheep for food, the introduction of predators, and a series of devastating droughts.
By 1982, every known individual lived in Epping Forest National Park in central Queensland. The recovery effort began there: predator-proof fencing was installed, competitors were removed, and the population was carefully monitored. It was slow. Wombats are not fast breeders — females typically produce one joey every two years — and population growth was measured in single digits per year.
But it worked. Slowly, stubbornly, it worked.
**Building the Safety Net**
Conservation managers know that a single-site population is always one catastrophe away from extinction. A disease outbreak, a wildfire, a prolonged drought — any of these could eliminate the entire species in one blow.
In 2009, a second colony was established at Richard Underwood Nature Refuge near Yaraka. Then, in 2024, a third: Powrunna State Forest in southwest Queensland. Wombats from Epping Forest were carefully translocated to this new site — the most ambitious step yet in giving the species a genuine safety net.
The February 2026 joeys are the first wild births at Powrunna. They confirm that the translocation worked. The animals settled. They bred. And new life arrived.
**From 35 to 400+**
The total population of northern hairy-nosed wombats has grown from those 35 individuals in the 1980s to over 400 today. That's still critically endangered. That's still fragile. But it's more than ten times what it was, and the trajectory — for the first time in the species' modern history — is pointing the right way.
These joeys didn't arrive because of luck. They arrived because rangers, scientists, government agencies, and conservation organisations maintained a 40-year effort without giving up when progress was invisible. That kind of sustained, unglamorous commitment to a species most people have never heard of is what conservation actually looks like.
Three tiny wombats in a Queensland forest. A species that came back from 35.
This is what hope looks like. 🐨💚
*Sources: Queensland Department of the Environment · Wombat Foundation · IUCN Red List · Happy Eco News, February 2026*
