“He was rescued and hand-raised, so maybe that’s why he loves cuddles,” Oakvale Farm & Fauna World curator Lachlan Gordon said of Hitch.

“It comes down to his personality, really.

“Not all wombats are receptive to it but he is a bit of a special case.”

Hitch is about to become the star in the farm’s latest conservation effort, raising awareness of the plight of wombats in the wild.

From July 1, Oakvale will play host to wombat encounters, allowing visitors to get up close with the cuddly Hitch, a bare-nosed wombat, in the hope of highlighting the problems facing his endangered relatives, the northern and southern hairy-nosed wombats.

But Hitch is not the only adorable addition to Oakvale, with the farm revealing a record number of four koala joeys following its most successful breeding season on record.