Not too many years ago, wombats roamed relatively freely at Greens Beach.
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The colony was healthy and numbered in the hundreds, locals say.
But last month, the presumed last member of the original colony - affectionately known as T4 due to her regular appearance on the fourth tee at the local golf course - was killed by a vehicle on Beach Crescent just before Easter.
Volunteers with Wombat Rescue Tasmania, who administer treatment for mange in the area, have tracked the colony for years and say she was the last survivor after mange ravaged her relatives.
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T4 herself had been tracked for two years after she was found as a juvenile without her mother.
She also had mange, but instead of living in a burrow she would find shelter in culverts at the golf course. It made administering treatment difficult - volunteers had to anticipate her next move on the golf course and be waiting to apply as much treatment to her back as possible when they could.
Remarkably, her mange scabs fell away and her condition started to improve.
"As her hearing and sight improved, even the golfers noticed the change, and they were fond of the poor little wombat and pleased that at last we were making progress with her treatment," Bea Mayne, of WRT, said.
So it was with much sadness that T4 was found lifeless on the side of Beach Crescent, bearing signs of trauma consistent with being struck by a vehicle.
Not to be deterred, volunteers have released healthy orphan wombats on Gardners Road at the western end of Greens Beach in the hope of starting a new colony.
Ms Mayne said people just needed to be more careful when driving in the area.
"We just want people to know there are healthy ones in the area now," she said.
"We can only hope that motorists will slow down as these animals are nocturnal and very hard to see at night."
Mange is believed to be spread through scabie mites carried by livestock, dogs and other animals, which are then passed between species, including wombats.
Rashes develop which the wombats endlessly scratch, causing further skin conditions and eventually infection, leading to death if untreated.