Quest for a South West Woma

[SeaShell]

Hiya guys,

I love womas, they are one of my favourite species, and growing up in wheatbelt area of Western Australia, I spent a lot of time looking for wild ones. I had a personal 'bucket list' (shall we call it) of nearly a hundred reptile species local to my area that I wanted to find and document, and over the years I managed to tick off at least 80 percent of them. But the one thing I never saw, let alone get a photograph of, was the south-west locality Woma.
Unfortunately they didn't fair well with farmland taking over, and it is still at the top of my list to get a photo and documentation of one before too late.

My question is, has anyone one here ever found a SW woma that they can share their stories or photos of?

 

[Niall]

There is still a small population of them in the SW, Brian Bush found a bloody good looking one last year and my mate found one 2 years back. I am not giving out any clues to where this location is because you don’t know what type of people are on a public forum.

Last thing we need is more destruction to habitat in that area.

 

[SeaShell]

There is still a small population of them in the SW, Brian Bush found a bloody good looking one last year and my mate found one 2 years back. I am not giving out any clues to where this location is because you don’t know what type of people are on a public forum.

Last thing we need is more destruction to habitat in that area.

Yes definately do not give out any locations!! I won't even give out the location of the wheatbelt stimmis, there are a lot around, but give one location and that won't be the case for long!

The animal losses are very disappointing - even the thorny devils are seldom seen nowadays, 15 years ago there were plenty.

Thanks for your replies guys - I will still live in hope of finding one
My Dad gives me reports of all the snakes he still finds there (lives on a farm) - once he gave me the description of a a large snake, dark in colour with vertical stripes... hmm you never know!

 

[Bluetongue1]

The animal the boys photographed was the last official confirmed sighting – collected by a farmer near Watheroo.in 1989. I have been told a few individuals have turned up during survey work on other animals. And Niall is reliable and well connected so he would know. It is quite likely that the ones he is referring to, other than Busho’s, are the same ones I was told about.

The concern in the past was that of all the last individuals to have been found, were all very old adults and only one young woma was amongst them. This is indicative of a population no longer able to breed successfully.

I must try and find out the ages of the more recently uncovered individuals.

Blue

 

[Elapidae1]

One of the recent individuals turned up in survey was supposedly a healthy young adult and that was within the last year.
Once again hearsay but from what I would consider a reliable source.

 

[slide]

Does anyone know if there is a captive population of them? It would be such a shame to completely lose them.