Conservationists have dismissed the idea of culling southern hairy-nosed wombats, even as pastoralists say the marsupials are impacting on native grasses.

Wonga Station pastoralist David Lindner, who runs sheep 150 kilometres north of Adelaide, said that increasing wombat numbers have rendered large parts of his property devoid of native grasses.

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He estimated there are as many as 600 wombats on his property and that he is not the only pastoralist who sheep have to share grasses with wombats.

"With the wombats, the amount of digging they do, their warrens get larger and larger … then it's the grazing halo the create around the warrens and leave it as bare earth," Mr Lindner said.

"There has to be a reduction in numbers, there's no argument about that from the landholders."

Pastoralist David Linder says wombats are overgrazing his property. The black vegetation at the top left are native grasses that he said should be covering this paddock. ( ABC Rural: Lucas Forbes )

However, Australian Wildlife Society secretary Patrick Medway dismissed that call and said if agricultural land is barren, the fault was with the farmers, not native wildlife.

"The question of the drought is sad and I sympathise with farmers but the native fauna did not cause the drought, the overgrazing in many cases and the land clearing has caused the problem," he said.

Populations boom

University of Adelaide researcher Michael Swinbourne has studied southern hairy-nosed wombat populations and estimates their numbers have increased up to three times over the past 30 years.

He said wombat numbers have risen due to the decline of rabbits and dingoes.

Rabbit populations have been brought under control with the introduction of controlled diseases. ( ABC News )

"Since the 1950s we've introduced myxomatosis and more recently with the introduction of calicivirus, the rabbit population has been brought under effective control and that has allowed the wombat population to make a recovery," Mr Swinbourne said.

"Certainly for the last 20 or 30 years the numbers seem to be increasing quite dramatically and they're appearing in places where they haven't been seem in living memory."

Since 1885 the dog fence has protected the sheep industry in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland from predation by dingoes.

Mr Swinbourne says removing the dog fence and allowing dingoes to reassert themselves could keep herbivore numbers under control, even though pastoralists would likely not support the idea.

University of Adelaide's Michael Swinbourne said since humans have removed dingoes from many parts of the country, many Australian ecosystems lack a natural apex predator to keep herbivore numbers under control. ( Supplied: Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre )

"Of course, the problem of allowing dingoes back into the landscape would mean sheep farmers would be quite badly affected and so you would need to take into account their views and that may involve some sort of compensation experienced as a result of it," he said.

"But we certainly do need to have those sort of animals on our landscape to keep herbivore numbers under control."

Reserves: alternative option to cull

Wombats SA runs five reserves for wombats and has about 2,000 living on them.

Livestock SA president Joe Keynes said new nature reserves could be a way for farmers to co-exist with the southern hairy-nosed wombat. ( Supplied: Peter Barnes, Trust for Nature )

President Peter Clements also opposed the idea of a cull and would like to see the dog fence removed, and said humans cannot be trusted to keep native ecosystems in balance.

"Humans don't cull in a way that a natural system would, or a predator," he said.

"We tend to take the easier ones to shoot — the bigger ones — and that's been shown to result in populations decreasing in average size.

"I think it's wrong for humans to think we can act as a predator — we can't."

Wombats are protected, but Mr Clements said some farmers have culled wombats illegally close to their reserves.

"There's been a few instances lately of farmers bulldozing wombat burrows and burying them under ground and — there were about 80 of them shot and left to die on one property," he said.

Livestock SA president Joe Keynes said while not many members had reported issues with wombats, he was aware some producers were having issues with them.

"I haven't heard a lot of feedback from our members, but I do know that on the Murray Plains especially they are becoming an issue," he said.

Mr Keynes said culling could be one option, but that new nature reserves might be another option.

"It's very hard to get permits for destruction of wombats and maybe we need to look at areas where wombats can exist and maybe they should live there," he said.

"I guess we need to think about the way we manage them because we don't want to totally eradicate them, but how do we live with them?"