7/29/2019 Wombat Abuse

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Randy Higgins

Wombat Abuse: The Great Potential ThreatEvery day, people, around the world, go about their lives happy and content. They

do not stop to consider things that could be happening under their watch, without them

even suspecting. One of these things is wombat abuse.

Wombat abuse could be cruel and malicious, and no one would know. Countlesswombats could be tortured and killed for pleasure and nobody would know. This could

be stopped if a few, simple measures, were put in place, but no one will. And so, the

possibility of wombat abuse continues.

The Wombat (Vombatus Ursinus) and its cousins, the Northern and Southern

Hairy-nosed Wombat, (Lasiorhinus krefftii and Lasiorhinus latifrons) are small,

muscular, marsupial rodents, that live in Australia and Tasmania. They naturally borough

into the ground with their sharp claws and act highly aggressively towards predators. If

not closely monitored, these traits could be taken advantage of, in such sadistic sports as

wombat fights, similar to cock fights, where enraged wombats may be made to fight in a

ring; wombat races, when starved wombats could be forced to run great distances for

food; wombat bating, where wombats would be forced into a ring and tortured foramusement; and wombat electrocution, a game potentially involving electrocuting

wombats with cattle prods.

The potential for wombat abuse is great. In the eighteen and nineteen hundreds,

rat fighting was highly popular in places like Britain and the United States. With this in

mind, a larger version of rats fighting, raises a great likelihood of a serious illegal money

sport. Yet a blind eye is turned to this danger. Never are posters put next to dog and cat

abuse, warning of a threat to wombats, never are defenses made for the wombat in the

halls of Congress. It could be that wombat abuse is already a major problem, and no one

knows.

Simple laws could be passed to prevent wombat abuse. A term of imprisonment

for persons found guilty of wombat bating or electrocution and a heavy fine for personsbetting on wombat fights or races could all but eliminate any possibility of wombat

cruelty in the future. But, no laws have yet been passed to specifically prevent wombat

abuse. The wombat is still largely vulnerable to abuse. Why? It could be that nobody is

aware of the potential problem; that the screams of tortured wombats have yet to reach

ears in Washington. Or, it could be that congress is unwilling to admit that this could be a

problem. Or it could be that wombat abuse is already a highly profitable sport, and that

wombat cartels are using graft to make our representatives in Washington turn a blind

eye. There is no certain way of knowing. Any or all of these theories could be correct.

Wombat abuse could affect any number of wombats. There is simply not enough

information yet to make a positive conclusion on the current spread of wombat abuse.

However, through stricter laws and more research, the threat of wombat abuse could begreatly reduced if not eliminated.