Lauren quick to fall for the 'slowness of wombats'
Published on 24 November, 2011
American student Lauren Thompson recently spent 10 weeks closely observing wombats, thanks to a research internship hosted by CQUniversity and Rockhampton Zoo.
On the eve of heading back to Bellingham, north of Seattle, she summed up her new-found 'love' of wombats.
Lauren says wombat photography does not require fast shutter speeds
"I'm going to miss them. I love their slowness, I love how they think through every action," she said.
"I think we can all learn to chill out, relax and think about things a bit more."
While learning a few philosophical lessons, Lauren's research contributed to baseline scientific data for a project seeking the ideal nutritional and behavioural conditions to boost wombat breeding and general husbandry*.
LINK for recent video about the captive breeding project
The visiting student helped by weighing food supplied and food left over, as well as the wombats themselves. She also collected faecal samples for future wombat food use testing, and compared radio tracking collar data with actual movement observations.
Lauren graduated in Behavioural Neuroscience from Western Washington University and is keen to secure a postgraduate role researching in the areas of Animal Behaviour or Conservation Biology. Her Rockhampton sojourn will help her CV for applications.
She's been working alongside zookeeper Yvette Fenning who is a Masters researcher under the supervision of Bret Heath and Dr Dave Swain from Rockhampton Campus.
The project is being run in conjunction with Rockhampton Regional Council and Lauren's visit was arranged with help from the AustraLearn organisation.
While based at CQUniversity, Lauren has taken the opportunity to snorkel on the reef, explore the local caves and beaches and visit the historic town of Mount Morgan.
"And of course I've seen plenty of the Botanic Gardens around the Zoo," she says.
* This research aims to explore optimum management techniques to be drawn on when wombat breeding becomes commonplace in captivity. Rockhampton Zoo has the largest captive group of southern hairy nosed wombats in the world, with 13 individuals, and the Masters study will analyse husbandry factors such as diet, enclosure design, enrichment and group composition. This project is not only expected to provide benefits for the southern hairy nosed wombat breeding program and the welfare of this species, but could also be used to assist the critically-endangered northern hairy nosed wombats.