A rare animal story, so me making fun of Australian politicians circa 1974 or eyeing impressed Australian technical advancements will have to wait for another stamp. Today we take on the story of the Australian wombat. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
In June I was lucky enough to go on a short trip to Sydney, Australia. I took a day trip to the Blue Mountains and the tour stopped at a nature park named Featherdale where they had the many of the unique animals of Australia. I was expecting kangaroos and koalas, which they had, though the koalas were kept well back. While there a very friendly wombat came up to me and it turned into a trip highlight making friends with him. Once home seeing I own an Australian stamp featuring a wombat, it turned into just the excuse I needed to learn more about them. I also was quite moved by the ANZAC memorial in Sydney, so if I find a stamp of that, I will shortly after be bringing my readers that story. I have already covered the New Zealand ANZAC memorial here, https://the-philatelist.com/2018/02/16/new-zealand-expands-a-war-memorial/ . The Australian one is better.
Todays stamp is issue A224, a 20 cent stamp issued by Australia in 1974. The wombat got only the single issue that year. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
Wombats are one meter long marsupials native only to Australia that weigh about 40 pounds. They live in boroughs they dig and tend to live in more arid regions. Their chief predators are dingoes and Tasmanian devils. They are thought to be unlucky animals. Aborigine legend is that wombats descend from a man named Warren who had his head bashed in, his tail cut off and banished for being selfish. This would explain their fat torso and boroughing ways. British settlers to Australia were not themselves glad to see the wombat. In 1905 the government declared them varmints to be killed. Their boroughs were not welcome on farm or grazing land.
This has slowly changed as numbers of wombats decreased. There is a Wombat National Forest near Melbourne that no longer contains any wombats. By 1970, Australia declared the wombat protected and all of the regions except Victoria followed suit.
The 2000 Sydney Olympics became part of the wombats comeback. In the runup to the games, an ad agency had designed three animals to be the official mascots of the game. A kookaburra named Syd (for Sydney) a platypus named Olly(for Olympics), and an anteater named Millie (for the Millennium). Some felt these were too contrived, politically correct, and commercial. A radio DJ then designed an alternate unofficial mascot.”Fatso, the Fat Arsed Wombat”. Two statues of him were created and Fatso proved more popular. One of the statues of Fatso was auctioned off for charity and the other was mounted in the Olympic Village in honor of the workers that built it. This statue was stolen in 2011 but the rich guy who won the auction still has his. Such is the world today.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to throw it on the fool who stole Fatso. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.