Oz wildlife decimated
BUSHFIRES: ESTIMATED HALF-A-BILLION ANIMALS PERISH IN BLAZES Koala populations have been hit particularly hard.
The bushfires raging across Australia have had a devastating impact on the country’s unique flora and fauna, with some estimates putting the death toll at nearly half-a-billion animals in one state alone, and experts believe it could take decades for wildlife to recover.
Unprecedented temperatures across the continent have made this season’s fires particularly deadly, killing at least 20 people and bringing apocalyptic scenes to an area roughly twice the size of Belgium.
The crisis has focused attention on climate change, which scientists say is creating a longer and more intense bushfire season, and the Australian government has faced widespread criticism over its response and wider environmental policy.
Harrowing footage of desperate koalas drinking from water bottles handed to them by rescuers and kangaroos standing helpless in fire-ravaged towns and charred forests have shocked people across the world.
A University of Sydney study estimates that 480 million animals have been killed in just New South Wales (NSW) since September 2019. According to a statement released yesterday, the authors said the “highly conservative” mortality calculations could mean the toll could be “substantially higher”.
In order to reach the figure, the researchers cross-referenced estimates of mammal population density in NSW with areas of vegetation known to have been scorched to work out the death toll, which includes mammals, birds and reptiles, but not insects, bats or frogs.
“The true loss of animal life is likely to be much higher than 480 million,” the statement said.
“NSW’s wildlife is seriously threatened and under increasing pressure from a range of threats, including land clearing, exotic pests and climate change.”
Professor Andrew Beattie from Macquarie University told AFP he believed the death toll of animals nationwide could be in the billions, “if you think of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and larger insects such as butterflies”.
“We can be pretty sure that in large parts of these very expansive fires, most of the wildlife will be dead,” the emeritus professor from the department of biological sciences said.
“The flora and fauna will be gone and that includes the smaller animals which form the food chain for the bigger ones, which people often don’t think about.”
Koala populations have been hit particularly hard because they live in trees, feed only on certain types of eucalypts and cannot move away quickly enough.
Even before this year’s bushfire crisis, numbers in NSW and Queensland had already dropped by 42% between 1990 and 2010, according to the federal threatened species scientific committee.
The plight of the marsupial – native to Australia – has been raised in the country’s parliament, with Nature Conservation Council ecologist Mark Graham telling lawmakers: “The fires have burnt 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.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s handling of the crisis has provoked fury in Australia and further afield and Beattie said the response, particularly from the federal government, has been “lamentably slow and their attitude is still lamentably casual”. – AFP