The deaths of thousands of Koalas – as well as photos and videos posted on social media in recent weeks, can’t begin to tell the story of the devastation wrought on Australia’s indigenous fauna, including kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, possums, wombats, and echidnas.
There is now a real concern that a number of species of plants and animals have been wiped off the face of the Earth by the bushfires that began in September. Ecologists from the University of Sydney now estimate some 480 million animals have been killed since September, per News.com.au.
Image thanks Tony de la Fosse
Tracy Burgess, a volunteer at Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Services (WIRES), is very concerned they are not receiving as many animals as would be expected during this crisis, reports Reuters.
“We’re not getting that many animals coming into care,” she said, adding, “So, our concern is that they don’t come into care because they’re not there anymore, basically.”
WIRES and other animal welfare groups usually discourage people from feeding wild animals but the scope of the wildfires has prompted them to change that advice – encouraging people to provide much-needed food and water when possible.
With fires still raging across New South Wales and Victoria, horrendous scenes of kangaroos fleeing walls of fire, charred bodies of koalas and cockatoos falling dead out of trees have horrified the world as it tries to take in the scale of the unfolding disaster.
Koalas have been especially hard hit by the fires. They are slow-moving and only eat leaves from the eucalyptus tree – which is filled with oil, making them highly flammable. Up to a third of NSW koalas have been killed in the fires to date – that is a number of around 8,.000.
Notre Dame, a fucking church! burns and $1 billion is donated to fix a building. Australia is on fire, the entire fucking continent and… SILENCE! #bushfires #AustraliaBurning pic.twitter.com/tNTZ6RGmFd
— Joshua Kop (@Joshua_Kop) January 2, 2020
“The fires have burned so hot and so fast that there has been significant mortality of animals in the trees, but there is such a big area now that is still on fire and still burning that we will probably never find the bodies,” Nature Conservation Council ecologist Mark Graham told parliament.
“(Koalas) really have no capacity to move fast enough to get away” as the flames jumped from treetop to treetop, he said. Mr. Greene was addressing the NSW upper house inquiry concerning the status of the Koala population in light of the “unprecedented” unfolding disaster.
My last day of the decade felt like the apocalypse. Been covering the Australian bushfires for the last 6 weeks, but haven’t seen anything like yesterdays fire that decimated the town of Conjola, NSW. #bushfirecrisis #AustralianBushfires #NSWisburning work for @nytimes pic.twitter.com/KmVKqDMKsf
— matthew abbott (@mattabbottphoto) January 1, 2020
Science for Wildlife executive director Dr. Kellie Leigh also spoke at the hearing, saying this year’s bushfires show just how unprepared they were to save the Koala populations in the Blue Mountains.
“We’re getting a lot of lessons out of this and it’s just showing how unprepared we are,” Dr. Leigh said. “There’s no procedures or protocols in place — even wildlife carers don’t have protocols for when they can go in after the fire.”
SATELLITE SPOTLIGHT: The #Himawari8 #satellite has been keeping a close eye on #Australia's disastrous #bushfires, as #smoke from the #fires can be seen as far away as #NewZealand. The #NewSouthWales Rural Fire Service @NSWRFS says a #TotalFireBan is in effect for Fri. Jan. 3. pic.twitter.com/dPuQ4eaqxc
— NOAA Satellites – Public Affairs (@NOAASatellitePA) January 2, 2020
Stand Up for Nature, an alliance of 13 groups, is also calling for a hold on logging of native forests in New South Wales in a letter to Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
“These unprecedented fires have jeopardized the long-term viability of threatened species populations and forest ecosystems in several areas” and “allowing the further loss of habitat and impact on native species would be unconscionable.”
