Fire Animals
Transcript
TOM JOYNER, REPORTER: Amid the scenes of human heartache this summer, another tragedy has been playing out - the huge toll on our unique wildlife.
PROFESSOR CHRIS DICKMAN, ECOLOGIST: With repeated fires it's likely there will be long-term decreases in their populations, to the point where even currently common species begin to come under real threat for their existence.
SUSIE PULIS, WILDLIFE CARER: We can warm the milk. Alright. Now we go feed. He was just skin and bone this little fella. A tiny little thing.
TOM JOYNER: Like thousands of other Australians, these kangaroo joeys are bushfire refugees.
SUSIE PULIS: Here you go, bubba. You're going to sleep.
TOM JOYNER: Susie runs a wildlife in East Gippsland. As the fire front bore down, she fled with more than 30 native animals she was looking after.
SUSIE PULIS: There's no sign of life. There's no sign of the dead animals. They have just burnt beyond, burnt to ash. If I hadn't evacuated the animals at the shelter they could have definitely been under threat. So the toll on me is huge. Sorry. Hold on a minute. OK.
TOM JOYNER: Susie has been caring four these four joeys in the loungeroom of a friend's house at nearby Raymond Island.
SUSIE PULIS: It's a disaster what's happened but the community has come together and really wanted to help. It's just awesome to see that. I want to say a big thank you.
TOM JOYNER: Elsewhere on the island, Susie has enlisted a group of volunteers to collect food for seven koalas that she's temporarily housed in a backyard.
ANIMAL CARER: We've got a roster going at the moment and every morning we come and put new food in for the koalas. Make sure it's all clean and nice for them and they're all happy.
ANIMAL CARER: They're here because they were terribly sick. Starving basically, but through the care and the good work of the locals on Raymond Island, we've been able to bring them back to good health.
TOM JOYNER: Koalas are particularly vulnerable to the bushfire threat.
CHRIS DICKMAN: One of their responses to a threat is to climb up to the top of a tree and sit there. If you have crown fires happening that's the obviously the last place you want to be.
TOM JOYNER: Ecologist Chris Dickman says that other animals not directly threatened by the flames could also face a grim future.
CHRIS DICKMAN: They may be underground, they might be able to go into a deep burrow. Cracks in the soil, even crevices in rocks if they're in rocky country. For them the problem of the fires will be when they re-emerge after the flames have passed, there will be very little food, very little water, very little shelter. All their habitat will have gone. These include species like the Long-footed potoroo that occurs in East Gippsland.
TOM JOYNER: Professor Dickman sparked international headlines with his estimate that up to a billion native animals have been affected by the fires.
CHRIS DICKMAN: Using average density estimates from published information in New South Wales, it looks as if around 800 million mammals, birds and reptiles have been affected by the fires.
If we can make the assumption that it average densities calculated for New South Wales can be extrapolated into Victoria, where 1.2 million hectares have burned, then we're probably looking at a billion mammals, birds and reptiles that have been affected by the fires.
The numbers are huge.
JENNY PACKWOOD, WILDLIFE CARER: One of our guys was escorted through the fires and he said it was like walking through a crematorium, He said it was deathly quiet, there was no birds. There was just charred bodies.
TOM JOYNER: Jenny Packwood has been caring for injured birds at her home in Vincentia on the New South Wales South Coast.
JENNY PACKWOOD: Birds with singed feathers, burnt feet. A sea eagle I had last week, came in with badly burnt feet. We have a little baby wattlebird. Obviously, there's not enough food out there, again, because of the drought and the fire situation. Dead grass, no leaves or fruit on trees.
TOM JOYNER: Down the road another volunteer, Shirley Lack, is taking care of wombats, orphaned by the fires.
SHIRLEY LACK, ANIMAL CARER: Come on. Come on. Come on. Getting a bit warm outside.
Wombats are a lucky animal. They don't have a lot of impact as the fire is going over, but it's when they come out after the fire that the ground's all burnt and there's no food.
The mother goes on to the side of the road looking for food. And they're hit and then the babies are left in the burrow at this stage. Nobody comes back to get them. And then after a couple of days the baby goes looking for Mum.
TOM JOYNER: Sadly, a number of our native animals may now face an uncertain future.
SHIRLEY LACK: It will never recover in my lifetime. Never. Be lucky to recover in my grandkids' lifetime. Sorry.
CHRIS DICKMAN: I think it is quite possible there will be some species that face imminent extinction as a consequence of these fires. I guess we'll only be able to find out what the effects of the fires have been when we get the chance to get back in and look at whether there are survivors.