Australia Bushfires: Rescuers race to save wildlife
Vickii Lett has been a volunteer wildlife carer in New South Wales (NSW) for 32 years. While she says her work can sometimes be heartbreaking, this year she has witnessed Australia’s wildlife being wiped out on an unprecedented scale by fires that continue to rage across the country.
“The scope of these fires is something we’ve never experienced before,” said Lett, whose work with the Australian wildlife rescue group, WIRES, often involves searching for survivors amid the ashes.
“It’s heartbreaking to see those injured animals. Many of them have to be destroyed, others, maybe you see the shell of a body but it’s basically just a shape in the ash.”
Since country-wide fires first flared up unseasonably early in September, hundreds of homes have been lost, more than five million hectares (12.4 million acres) of bush and farmland have been scorched, and at least 24 people have been killed.
Ecologists from the University of Sydney estimate almost half a billion mammals, birds and reptiles have died since the fires began.
As another heatwave sweeps across the country, the fires are showing no sign of abating and experts fear there may not be enough habitat or numbers left for some species to recover.
A global appeal to help Australian firefighters tackling catastrophic bushfires raised almost Aus$25 million yesterday.
American pop star Pink said she would donate US$500,000 to the firefighters, a donation matched by Australian actress Nicole Kidman.
World number one Ash Barty pledged to handover all her winnings from this week’s Brisbane International tennis tournament -- potentially US$250,000 -- to the Red Cross.
Around 200 fires continued to burn yesterday, many out of control, although only a handful prompted emergency warnings as temperatures dipped.
Everywhere, millions of beleaguered residents struggled to come to grips with a catastrophe that has taken place on a near-continental scale, unfurled over months and altered daily life, reports AFP.
“We’re in uncharted territory,” New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said. “We can’t pretend that this is something that we have experienced before. It’s not.”
Authorities have struggled to keep pace with the severity of the crisis -- which has now scorched an area almost the size of Ireland.
DISAPPEARING HABITATS
The animals Vickii Lett cares for include koalas, wallabies, kangaroos and various species of possums.
While rehabilitation can take months, releasing them back into their natural habitat requires that habitat to exist.
Right now it is burning, Lett said, and with the scale of this year’s fires, it is unclear how long it will take to rejuvenate and for release to be possible.
The fires have also caused a drop in bird, rodent and insect populations.
“When that happens, then, of course, that’s going to affect the larger ecosystem, because that’s the building blocks for a whole community,” Lett told Al Jazeera, adding that everything has a role in nature from breaking things down, being eaten by other animals, or spreading seeds.
“We just cannot minimise the effects of losing those smaller species.”
Bats are also in danger, not only from fires and habitat loss, but soaring temperatures.
WIRES Flying Fox coordinator Storm Standford estimated that about 50 percent of this year’s infant grey-headed flying foxes have died.
“For the past six weeks, what we’re seeing is mass abandonment of young, and that’s odd,” Standford told Al Jazeera, as two baby flying foxes grappled noisily for her attention. “Ecologically it’s really not clear what is going on for them.”
In some areas, wildlife carers are seeing an increase of up to 200 or 300 percent of dead or abandoned infants, Standford said.
While the situation is dire, many Australians are working hard to ensure the animals that do not burn have the means to survive.
Fires began burning in Lucille Hoy’s region at the end of October, but in the week before Christmas, the flames reached the national park that borders her home town of Lithgow.
The Pilates instructor told Al Jazeera that not only were hundreds of animals dying in the flames, but those who managed to survive were dehydrated and starving, their vegetation wiped out.
Within days of connecting with local wildlife groups and posting an appeal on Facebook, her home became a supply hub.
Hoy began receiving deliveries of hundreds of kilogrammes of wildlife pellets as well as medical supplies - particularly for burns - as well as water containers.
Hoy said many locals were starting to help with distribution, but with the scale of the destruction, the need was likely to continue long after the fires had burned out.
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