{"id":173,"date":"2003-08-15T23:20:48","date_gmt":"2003-08-15T22:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/?p=173"},"modified":"2012-01-01T23:22:37","modified_gmt":"2012-01-01T22:22:37","slug":"when-the-wild-wombat-comes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/2003\/08\/when-the-wild-wombat-comes\/","title":{"rendered":"When the wild wombat comes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Abstract: When the wild wombat comes &#8211; is he going to eat us all? No animal in the zoo has ever heard anything about a wombat, but soon wild rumours are circulating. No wonder all animals are hiding when the wild wombat arrives at the zoo. This is a story about the dangers of gossip, hearsay and speculation<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On a nice summerday in the zoo a parrot happened to hear the following conversation of two animal-attendants: \u00abToday we are going to get a wild wombat. Straight from Australia. We must handle it with care..\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>The parrot flew to the seal and passeed on the news. \u00abYou think the animal-attendant is really afraid of the wild wombat?\u00bb asked the seal. \u00abSounded like it\u00bb said the parrot. \u00abHe said, you must take care.\u00bb The seal was scared and passed it on to the chameleon. Oh, the chameleon thought, if the seal is afraid of the wild wombat, then the wild wombat can surely swim better than the seal! And it imagined the wild wombat as a real monster.<\/p>\n<p>The chameleon passed it on to the owl, and the owl, too, started to be scared. Surely the wild wombat can go into hiding better then the chameleon, thought the owl. But then, out of the blue, the wombat would pop out and everydody would be scared. The owl imagined a scarey wild wombat.<\/p>\n<p>The owl was very upset and passed it on to the turtle. The turtle went straight to the gazelle to warn it. \u00abThe wild wombat is a terrible animal which can even fly better than an owl.\u00bb That\u2019s how the turtle finished its report. The animals stared at each other and were scared.<\/p>\n<p>The gazelle ran straight to the elephant. \u00abThe wild wombat is armoured like a turtle\u00bb it told the elephant breathlessly. \u00abIt can fly and even make itself invisible like a chameleon, it swims better than a seal and it comes from Australia.\u00bb If the gazelle is so scared, the elephant speculated, then the wild wombat can also run faster than the gazelle.<\/p>\n<p>The elephant hurrried to the kangaroo. \u00abYou\u2019re from Australia, aren\u2019t you? What do you know about the wild wombat? The kangaroo took a moment. It had never met a wild wombat. But &#8211; as all animals were afraid of it, it really had to be a very dangerous animal. \u00abWhere the wild wombat used to live, there\u2019s only desert now\u00bb the kangaroo explained to the elephant decidedly. \u00abThere are no more animals and no wood &#8211; the wild wombat has devoured everything\u00bb. \u00abOh god!\u00bb the elephant shouted. Now it was scared, too.<\/p>\n<p>The flamingo had overheard everything. As fast as it could he ran to the lions. \u00abEverybody is terrribly afraid of the wild wombat!\u00bb it shouted breathlessly. \u00abIt can run faster than a gazelle and it\u2019 s bigger than an elephant, it can become invisible, it can fly and swim, too. It\u2019s armoured and it\u2019s all teeth and claws and mouth!\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>So, even the brave lions started to be scared.<\/p>\n<p>On this day no animal was to be seen in the zoo. Everybody was hiding, and it was very quiet. Then a car with a wooden cage arrived. Some animal-attendants put the cage into an enclosure in the middle of the zoo. The door opened and a brown animal peeped out: \u00abHello!\u00bb it shouted in a friendly tone. \u00abHere I am. I\u2019m a wombat and I\u2019m going to live here\u00bb. But no animal was to be seen..The wombat was quite surprised. Actually it had heard a lot about the other animals on its trip. After some time the parrot flew by. \u00abHello, so you are the wombat\u00bb, it greeted friendly. \u00abRight\u00bb, said the wombat. \u00abAnd you are a parrot. But where on earth are the other animals?\u00bb it asked. \u00abWhere have they gone?\u00bb The parrot looked around.. \u00ab I say\u00bb, and it took a long moment, \u00abwell, actually, I don\u2019t understand that either.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>The wombat is a good-natured peaceful Australian marsupial resembling a small bear. It lives underground and is active at night. It eats roots, mushrooms, grass and herbs.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/wombat.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-174\" title=\"wombat\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/wombat.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"217\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/wombat.jpg 217w, http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/wombat-203x300.jpg 203w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 217px) 100vw, 217px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abstract: When the wild wombat comes &#8211; is he going to eat us all? No animal in the zoo has ever heard anything about a wombat, but soon wild rumours are circulating. No wonder all animals are hiding when the &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/2003\/08\/when-the-wild-wombat-comes\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sprachschule","tag-englisch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177,"href":"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bigmouth.ch\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}