Wildlife experts and scientists are worried that the raging fires in Australia that have already killed more than 480,000,000 animals may have wiped out entire species already!
The inferno has already caused catastrophic losses, and experts say that some species may have been wiped out entirely and fear for those who are on the brink of extinction as well.
The world may have already lost Populations of small marsupials called dunnarts and glossy black cockatoos may have been destroyed in the fires that burned a third of Kangaroo Island that’s located off the country’s southern coast.
This island has now been turned into a scorched wasteland.
Ecologists are trying to find survivors of the dunnart population to rescue the species before they are completely extinct.
According to them, the mouse-like marsupials are too small to outrun the wildfires, so the can’t escape the inferno on their own.
Unfortunately, even if there are survivors, the fires have burnt all their food and they are very likely to starve to death. Scientists are hoping to bring some animals into captivity to save their lives before it’s too late.
It’s early days, fires are still burning but we have lost a lot of critical refugia for endangered species which will affect long term viability of these species.
he Kangaroo Island dunnart is our main species of concern and it looks like its entire known [habitat] range has been fried. We are locating unburnt remnant patches of its habitat to see if we can locate it through camera trapping.
Pat Hodgens, a fauna ecologist for the same nonprofit
Mr.Hodgens team has set up cameras to detect any survivors and are trying to locate potential areas where survivors may persist with the help of drone mapping.
As for the Government, they are already making plans to help the surviving animals thrive and grow in numbers.
Planning is already underway through the Australian government Department of the Environment and Energy to work with scientists, state organisations, national parks authorities, natural resource managers and indigenous land managers to identify recovery priorities and future protection strategies.
Funding is already in place for koala hospitals and additional funding will be directed towards koala habitats. Mapping is already commencing in some areas of northern NSW to understand fire impacts on koala habitats and determine the most effective options going forward
A spokesperson for the Australia’s Department of the Environment and Energy
It will be a time before anyone can tell exactly how much damage has the fires done to the wildlife in Australia, but everything says that it will be much worse than anything the country has experienced in recent history.
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