Bonding?

At first Elsie was indifferent to having a wombat in the house.

But after a few weekends, Elsie would run through the house with Barney trailing behind her – then she’d leave him somewhere and run back to me pretending that there never was a second wombat! Quite a good trick!

When the trick of leaving Barney somewhere in the house failed to work ( because I would go and find him) Elsie decided to try sulking! The sharp hissing noise you can hear in the video below is Elsie being cross!

So, the running and leaving Barney behind didn’t work – the hiding didn’t work…! What else could Elsie do? How about growling and biting?!

But Barney is pretty clever! He might not feel confident to bite the larger and heavier Elsie but as I said… he’s a bulldozer! Barney uses what he knows – his head! If something or someone is in his way – he will put his head down and knock them out of the way! This is a necessary skill for living in the wild! All that digging and excavating! He needs to be strong!

You might wonder why don’t I intervene with all this battling between the wombats? Should I step-in when the going gets tough? Elsie and Barney will be released back into the wild after another year in care. Eventually they will transition to a large outdoor enclosure and become less accustom to humans. By the time they are released they will be wild…. and aggressive! And guess what? It’s really tough out there in the wild! They need to learn to bite, dig, excavate, run, defend themselves and attack if necessary! I will only intervene if the fighting becomes nasty or serious! Until then….they have to learn to sort it out!

So did Elsie put up with being pushed around? Did poor Barney survive the wrath of Elsie? Did they repair the bond? More on Elsie and Barney to come…. stay tuned?

Instagram page – wombats_and_wildlife_heljan09.