The Australian bushfires: one of the worst or largest animal disasters in history since the ice age

"To give it some context, the Australian fires [are] probably one of the worst or largest animal disasters in history since the ice age,"

Kiwi volunteers jump the 
ditch to help fire-affected
Australian animals

NZHerald,

12 January, 2020

Animals fleeing the devastating Australian bushfires were like a tsunami, a New Zealand volunteer rescuing wildlife in New South Wales says.

There are fears some of Australia's native species – like the Kangaroo Island dunnart – may even become extinct because of the fires.

Six volunteers - a veterinarian, emergency managers, animal control officers and military paramedics - from Animal Evac New Zealand have flown to New South Wales to help with the rescue. 

The trust specialises in animal evacuation in disaster situations and has been stationed in Bundanoon, south west of Sydney.

Animal Evac founder Steve Glassey, who is the former chief executive of Wellington SPCA, told RNZ's The Weekend the conditions had been extraordinarily challenging.

"To give it some context, the Australian fires [are] probably one of the worst or largest animal disasters in history since the ice age," Glassey said.

"There are so many hundreds of thousands, millions, maybe close to a billion animals that have perished in this disaster, so it's an extremely challenging event for the government of Australia. It's probably also the first time that the Australians have had to entertain international disaster response for animal welfare, so that in itself is a challenge and the New South Wales government is doing a doing a great job with the fire response as well."

Glassey described finding the animals as like looking for a needle in a haystack.

"One of the things that the team is, I think, sort of struggling with is the fact that we know there are millions of animals out there and we go out there to rescue animals and we may sort of be able to find or locate a few and you sort of think 'well are we making a dent in this?' But the reality is that we might not be able to save the world, but we can hopefully make a difference here."

On the first day there, the team - whose trip to Australia was supported by SAFE New Zealand - was based in the Blue Mountains with a local animal welfare agent who was licensed to use a tranquilliser gun to rescue kangaroos trying to flee the area.

Glassey said the team came across a number of dead kangaroos during their search, but they were able to help some of the injured.

"Most of them stayed reasonably sort of still, probably in more of a pain and panic state.

"It was like they were actually wanting us to help them rather than just flee. So by having a bit of safe distance we've been able to use experts with tranquilliser guns to immobilise them, chemically immobilise, and then we can approach the animal and treat it."

Images shared on social media has shown the cost to wildlife the fires have had, with estimates in the hundreds of millions possibly dead.

Glassey said the images he had seen looked like a tsunami of animals running away from the fire front.

"Sometimes the fires can be so fast those animals are all moving out and are in a large surge, but if there is boundary fencing they just get caught up against it and unfortunately perish."

He said he had heard stories from people who had fled to the coast and taken refuge in the sea.

"They had to endure listening to the koalas that had fled the bush coming down to the beach line, they heard those koalas were screaming for help. Most people that were taking safe refuge in the water couldn't do anything apart from listen to those cries for help.

"That's why we're here, we're here to make sure that those koalas and kangaroos that have been affected by this catastrophic event have trained experts on the ground to help them. We have exhausted our financial resources, we would love to send another or larger contingent of specialists from New Zealand to this event. But we can only do that if we get the support of New Zealand and other donors to make that happen.

Glassey said, at this point, there was no end in sight.

"Look, it's absolutely devastating, this is an absolutely catastrophic event and the fires are still going and they'll continue to go for days if not longer.

"That means that there are still going to be animals that are going to be impacted. On the bright side, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and the partner agencies, they've done a fantastic job providing really good, clear information for people to make sure the animals have been kept safe. So in terms of companion animals and stock, they're not as impacted as what the wildlife are."

Glassey said even when the fires were extinguished, the rehabilitation process for animals would be ongoing.

"That demand for world-wide rehabilitation is certainly there and it's been there for the last few months as the earlier fires stepped up.

"So yes they're going to need resources for that and there are organisations in Australia that are certainly helping with that. The challenge is ... how do we bring those animals out for those organizations to care when there is potentially a deficiency in trained responders that have the fire safety training and the experience to go onto a fire ground with the confidence of the local authorities.

"The issue is that there are people that wanted to go in and come over and deploy that don't have the training for this. And unfortunately, that's creating a secondary disaster for authorities and the sense that the overwhelming amount of spontaneous volunteers potentially distract them from being able to help and mobilise legitimate animal rescue organizations that are accredited."

Glassey said the fires in Australia were a timely reminder for New Zealanders about possibility of it happening here, especially after the Nelson fires at the start of 2019.

"I think that unless we start preparing in New Zealand, this could be us in times to come and it highlights the importance of emergency planning, funding and co-ordination to make sure there's resource, capacity, training and collaboration within New Zealand to make sure we can be one step ahead of these kinds of disasters."

- RNZ

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/118613872/australian-bushfires-dead-animals-line-the-road-in-rural-nsw-town

From 2015

Almost 700 Victorian koalas killed in secret cull

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/worldtoday/almost-700-victorian-koalas-killed-in-secret-cull/6280158

500 MILLI0N animals feared dead in Australian bushfires

Nearly 500 million animals 

killed in Australian 

bushfires, experts fear

Evening Standard,

27 December, 2019

Around 480 million animals are feared to have died in the bushfires sweeping Australia, including nearly a third of the koalas in New South Wales's main habitat.

Ecologists at the University of Sydney estimate around 480 million mammals, birds and reptiles have been killed, directly or indirectly, by the devastating blazes since they began in September, The Times reported.

This includes almost 8,000 koalas, which are believed to have burnt to death on the state’s mid-north coast.

The region, which lies around 240 miles north of Sydney, is home to the largest number of Australia’s koalas, with a population of up to 28,000.

Federal environment minister Sussan Ley told ABC "up to 30 per cent of the population in that region" may have been killed, because around 30 per cent of their habitat has been destroyed.

“We’ll know more when the fires have calmed down and a proper assessment can be made,” she added.

Nine people have died and hundreds of homes have been razed to the ground during the unprecedented bushfire season.

About four million hectares have been burnt in New South Wales alone.

As well as being one of Australia's most populous koala habitats, the mid-north coast region also houses one of the country's main koala hospitals.

Dedicated workers at the The Port Macquarie Koala Hospital reportedly treated 72 badly burnt animals on Christmas Day.

They were brought in after bushfires destroyed up to three quarters of their habitat, according to the clinical director Cheyne Flanagan.

“We have teams on roster for capture if any are in trouble and they are available 24 hours a day,” she told Reuters.

A Gofundme page for the hospital has received more than £1.6million ($2million AUD) since September - the largest single amount raised on the site in Australian history, website Newshub reported.

According to Mark Graham, an ecologist with the Nature Conservation Council, koalas “have no capacity to move fast enough to get away” from fires that spread from treetop to treetop.

“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,” Mr Graham told a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry earlier this month.

“We’ve lost such a massive swathe of known koala habitat that I think we can say without any doubt there will be ongoing declines in koala populations from this point forward.”

The scorched regions include nature reserves in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and parts of the Gondwana rainforests — which have existed since the time of the dinosaurs and are the most extensive area of subtropical rainforest in the world.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7829667/Koala-flags-cyclist-sips-water-bottle-temperatures-soar-nearly-40C-Adelaide.html

Cattle have stopped breeding and koalas are dying of thirst in Australia

Cattle have stopped breeding, koalas die of thirst: A vet's hellish diary of climate change

SMH,

26 December, 2019

Bulls cannot breed at Inverell. They are becoming infertile from their testicles overheating. Mares are not falling pregnant, and through the heat, piglets and calves are aborting.

My work as a veterinarian has changed so much. While I would normally test bulls for fertility, or herds of cattle for pregnancy, I no longer do, because the livestock has been sold. A client’s stud stock in Inverell has reduced from 2000 breeders to zero.

I once assisted farmers who have spent their lives developing breeding programs, with historic bloodlines that go back 80 years. These stud farmers are now left with a handful of breeders that they can’t bear to part with, spending thousands keeping them fed, and going broke doing it.

Cattle that sold for thousands are now in the sale yards at $70 a head. Those classed as too skinny for sale are costing the farmer $130 to be destroyed.

They are all gone and it was all for nothing. The paddocks are bare, the dams dry, the grass crispy and brown. The whole region has been completely destocked and is devoid of life.

For 22 years, I have been the vet in this once-thriving town in northern NSW, which, as climate change continues to fuel extreme heat, drought and bushfires, has become hell on Earth.

Here, we are seeing extreme weather events like never before. The other day we had about eight centimetres of rain in 20 minutes. These downpours are like rain bombs. They are so ferocious that a farmer lost all of his fences, and all it did was silt up the dam so he had to use a machine to excavate the mud.

Most farmers in my district have not a blade of grass remaining on their properties. Topsoil has been blown away by the terrible, strong winds this spring and summer. We have experienced the hottest days that I can remember, and right now I can’t even open any windows because my eyes sting and lungs hurt from bushfire smoke.

For days, I have watched as the bushland around us went up like a tinderbox. I just waited for the next day when my clinic would be flooded with evacuated dogs, cats, goats and horses in desperate need of water and food.

The impact of the drought on wildlife is devastating to watch, too. Members of the public are bringing us koalas, sugar gliders, possums, galahs, cockatoos and kangaroos on a daily basis.

The koalas affect me the most. To see these gorgeous, iconic animals dying from thirst is too hard to bear. We save some, but we lose just as many.

The whole town is devastated. My business has halved. But with no horses to breed, no cattle to test and care for, what am I going to do? I have worked day and night to build a future for my family, but who would want to buy our property out here? Who would want to buy a vet clinic in a town where there are no animals to treat because it’s too hot and dry? Where the cattle become infertile from the 40-degree heat. All this on black, baked ground.

I am 53 years old. Can I start again?

Climate change for us is every day, and I am not suffering on the same level as my friends, my clients and the helpless animals I treat. As a veterinarian I am becoming more and more distressed, not just about the state of my town, but the whole world.

Personally, I have had weeks when I just cry. It just bloody hurts me. I also have times when I get really angry and I start to swear, which I have never done in my life.

I also have times when I think about the potential this country has to create a renewable future with clean, green energy, and end our reliance on fossil fuels.

EMISSIONS

'Too emotional, too hot': World's top energy chief laments Australia's climate debate

You only have to look at how resilient our farmers are in the face of devastating, extreme weather conditions to understand that we can make a powerful, meaningful difference to our future.

The government has no idea what it’s like for us. It has no empathy. Its members don't know how much it hurts when they just say yes to another coal mine.

I would invite Scott Morrison to come and see what life in Inverell is like. In case he chooses not to, I'll paint this picture for the country and hope people can start to realise and understand the devastating impact climate change is having. I hope they will take a stand for the people, the places and the animals whose voices are too small for him to hear.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7825757/Bushfires-Charred-corpse-koala-curled-ball-makes-fireys-cry.html