Epping Forest is a national park in Queensland, Australia, 855 km northwest of Brisbane. The park is a scientific national park so it is not open to the public. Only scientists, rangers and volunteers may visit the park.
Restricted access is used to ensure Epping Forest remains very much undisturbed as it is the sole remaining natural habitat of the endangered Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat. The last census of the animal estimated there was a population of about 138 of the species. In the 1970s the population was estimated to have reached a low of somewhere between 20 to 30 wombats.
Most of the park is eucalypt woodland with patches of sandy soils that are used by the wombats for burrowing.
Famous quotes containing the words forest, national and/or park:
“A lady with whom I was riding in the forest said to me that the woods always seemed to her to wait, as if the genii who inhabit them suspend their deeds until the wayfarer had passed onward; a thought which poetry has celebrated in the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human feet.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is no part of the functions of the National Government to find employment for the people, and if we were to appropriate a hundred millions for his purpose, we should only be taxing 40 millions of people to keep a few thousand employed.”
—James A. Garfield (1831–1881)
“Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his “comb” and “spare shirt,” “leathern breeches” and “gauze cap to keep off gnats,” with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)