A billion animals have been caught in Australia's fires. Some may go extinct.
Source: Washington Post
A billion animals have been caught in Australia’s fires. Some may go extinct.
Some of the rarest species on Earth are threatened by fires scorching their habitats, scientists warn.
By Karin Brulliard and Darryl Fears
1/9/2020, 11:58:50 a.m.
The mouse-size dunnart is not as iconic as the koalas or platypuses that draw tourists, but it is arguably the most special mammal on Australia’s Kangaroo Island.
Now the Kangaroo Island dunnart’s days may be numbered. Before bush fires struck, it was already endangered, so rare that even researchers who studied them had never seen one. Now they fear they never will. One-third of the 1,700-square-mile island has burned, including the entire area where these dunnarts are known to live.
“One hundred percent — all of our records since 1990 are within the burned fire scar. The entire range of the species has been burned,” said Rosemary Hohnen, an ecologist who spent more than two years surveying the Kangaroo Island dunnart. “They’re in true peril, real peril of extinction.”
More than 1 billion mammals, birds and reptiles nationwide — some of them found nowhere else on Earth — may have been affected or killed by the fires sweeping across Australia, according to a University of Sydney estimate. The potential toll is far greater when other types of animals are included.
“We’re not just talking about koalas — we’re talking mammals, birds, plants, fungi, insects, other invertebrates, amphibians, and bacteria and microorganisms that are critical to these systems,” said Manu Saunders, a research fellow and insect ecologist at the University of New England in Armidale.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/01/09/australia-fire-animals-killed/
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I spent most of my adult life--30+years--in the care of exotic animals, many of them Australian species. Tree Kangaroos, Wallabies, Wombats, Cassowaries, Echidnas, Goannas(a lizard). Incubated, hatched and raised Kookaburra. To keep seeing the reports of the deaths and extent of the losses is just devastating to me. I avoid any photos, I just can't look.
A couple of weeks ago I donated to a group that is trying to save as many Gray-headed Flying Foxes as they can. That wasn't even from the fires, but the extreme heat waves. In one day they lost 5000 of these amazing bats. The losses of the pups is going to be disastrous for the species.
The flora and fauna of Australia is so unique and specialized that it is unthinkable how much diversity is going to be lost. And I think it's just the canary in the coal mine. It's not going to be the only place this will happen. I hope it's not too late. 
I hate to think that the environmental disaster in Australia will be what it takes to wake the human race up. And I have my doubts that it will. But maybe enough people will see what is happening and really start to fight to protect what we have now, before it's too late.
