Australia’s ‘insurance’ koala population halved by bushfires
At least half of Australia’s only disease-free koala population, a key “insurance” for the species’ future, is feared dead with more badly hurt after bushfires swept through an island sanctuary, rescuers said Sunday.
Kangaroo Island, a popular nature-based tourist attraction off the coast of South Australia state, is home to many wild populations of native animals including the much-loved koala, where the populated was estimated at 50,000.
Massive bushfires have flared up in the vast country’s southeast in a months-long crisis, killing nearly half a billion native animals in New South Wales state alone, scientists estimate.
Authorities began assessing the damage from bushfires yesterday, as cooler conditions provided a temporary respite from blazes that have scarred the country’s east coast for weeks.
Light rain and cooler temperatures in the southeast of the country were a welcome change from the searing heat that has fuelled the devastating fires, but officials warned they were not enough to put out almost 200 fires still burning.
“Over 50 percent (of the population) has been lost,” Sam Mitchell of Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park, which is raising funds to care for the injured koalas, told AFP.
“Injuries are extreme. Others have been left with no habitat to go back to, so starvation will be an issue in coming weeks.”
A University of Adelaide study published in July found that the Kangaroo Island koala species is particularly important to the survival of the wider population as it is the only large group free from chlamydia.
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