Australian Bushfire Toll on Koalas

"They're in shock, they're stressed, they've never seen humans or been in a car before."
"We anaesthetize them, then cut away the dead skin, bathe them, treat them with cream, gauze and bandages."
"We had to euthanize him [one koala]. He was brought in from a drought area last week, his organs were so badly damaged. It was very sad ... you try so hard to save them."
"We can't always relocate them ... a change in diet may kill them."
"We don't find bodies [in a search through scorched bush]. The fire was so intense that all that was left was ash."
If they have burned off their claws and they don't grow back properly, they can't climb and they can't live in the wild."
Sue Ashton, spokesperson, Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, Australia

"All the animals that have survived not only have no place to go back to, they don't have food sources left."
"In a fire, the insects get wiped out too, the smaller animals who eat ants and other insects won't have food. Possums and gliders, if there are any left -- most of them have been killed -- they eat leaves and fruit, which have all been destroyed."
Dr.Valentina Mella, Port Macquarie Koala Hospital

Australia’s wildfire crisis is taking a heavy toll on the animals and their habitat Credit: EPA

Several days ago ecologists from the University of Sydney released an estimated total for the number of animals that have died as a result of the wildfires ravishing Australia; an unbelievable 480-million altogether. According to veterinarian Dr. Melia, the extent of the wildfires in Australia will lave long-term consequences not only for koalas, whose very specific diet has been disastrously impacted, but many other animals, as well.

As for the koalas, the animal hospital specializing in koala rescue and rehabilitation, believe fully two thirds of the local koala population around Port Macquarie perished in the fires that swept the area six weeks earlier. Desperate for food and water, the koalas facing an uncertain reality totally new to them in its virulent, wide-sweeping impact, venture out of the burned bush that was their home, to cross roads and go into back gardens, placing themselves in danger, risking death by traffic or being attacked by peoples' dogs.

There are now 75 koalas in care at the Port Macquarie hospital. The blazes that destroyed 8.4-million hectares of bushland in Australia left an estimated 40 percent of the country's 80,000 endangered koalas dead. Around 390 kilometres' distant, north of Sydney, the hospital has taken in an unaccustomed number of koala patients, resulting from the heavy toll the wildfire crisis has taken on the habitat of the marsupials.

Australia has suffered severe drought for several years of late. That, leading to extremely tinder-dry conditions, along with record high temperatures have seen wildfires ravaging the country since summer's start. Koalas have been brought into the hospital by exhausted firefighters, by homeowners fleeing the fires, and by passing evacuees spotting the little animals collapsed at the side of the road.

Four veterinarians are assigned to treat each of the rescued koalas, at the hospital. One person for each paw, and a fifth to monitor heartbeat and breathing as the teams work around the clock in an effort to treat each new arrival as expeditiously as possible. Following surgery, staff change bandages, re-dress wounds regularly, and treat burns to sensitive noses and ears. There are fourteen intensive care units, and they're always full.

One koala discovered at the side of a major highway had burnt arms, nose and ears. A man stopped his car, held up traffic, then rescued the koala, now on its way back to health. The animal's paws were "like charcoal" when it was brought to the hospital. Routinely, hospital staff keep a record of the GPS co-ordinates to identify where the koalas are found. When the six to nine months of recovery is over, under normal circumstances they are released back to the wild, in the area from which they came.

All that is changed now; there is nothing 'normal' about the situation faced in Australia with the deaths of almost a half-billion animals as a result of an unstoppable wildfire situation. Responders now are advised to kill orphaned joeys immediately, reflecting the lack of availability of long-term care. In the hospital, one koala sits with its joey, in her arms, evacuated from Hawkesbury before the fires struck.

They're fed a diet of pureed pumpkin and corn during their five weeks of intensive one-on-one care, leading to recovery. Koalas eat only particular types of eucalyptus leaves, meaning that koalas from different areas require a diet of leaves typical of the area from which they come, and many of those areas have been burned beyond redemption.

Australia, one of the driest places on the globe, is no stranger to bushfires. This summer's wildfires, however, are seen as unprecedented in their ferocity and their spread. They began earlier in the season and have spread far more widely than ever before. There are 25 Australians dead as a result of the wildfires, and thousands of homes have been destroyed. Fires in New South Wales are predicted over the next few days to join those burning in Victoria, forming a 'mega blaze'.

Hospital personnel at the Port Macquarrie hospital are contemplating something fairly new to their experience; that with habitat so critically destroyed, there is an uncertain future before the injured koalas, who may have to become permanent wards remaining residents of the hospital.

Rebecca Turner, left, Sheila Bailey and Cheyne Flanagan treat a koala named Sharni from Crowdy Bay National Park for burns at the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital in Australia on Nov. 29, 2019. Flanagan says koala bears are coming to the hospital traumatized and dehydrated as a result of the worst wildfire season in Australia's history. (Nathan Edwards/Getty Images)