February 12, 2009 12:00am
MORE than a million native animals may have died in Victoria's fire inferno, a wildlife expert says.
The huge effort to rescue animals caught in the fire has begun with triage centres set up to assess injured wildlife at staging posts at Kilmore, Whittlesea and Redesdale near Bendigo.
The animals are then being treated and assessed by vets at nearby shelters, who make the agonising decision about which ones need to be put down.
Those animals still able to may wait several weeks before walking out of fire-affected forest, Gayle Chappell from the Hepburn Wildlife Shelter said.
Ms Chappell is among those working to rescue the animals and says the extent of the devastation may never be known.
"It (the animal death toll) will be in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions," Ms Chappell said.
"We are not just talking the animals we are familiar with, there are gliders and all sorts of possums, antechinus (a mouse-like marsupial), bandicoots, birds -- there is so much wildlife.
"It is devastating, the actual size of the destruction is devastating to a number of wildlife populations."
It is feared endangered populations of gliders, owls and lizards may be among the dead.
For those that have survived, the recovery process will be long and slow.
"They have lost their homes too and they are not going to be rebuilt in a year or two years, it is a much longer-term picture," Ms Chappell said.
"You can't reconstruct a forest."
The fires also destroyed four wildlife shelters, including Stella Reid's Wildhaven shelter at Kinglake.
Ms Chappell said Ms Reid escaped with her life, but the animals were not so lucky.
"It has been a real blow for everybody, I think. That is what has really brought it home for everybody, hearing that Stella Reid's place was totalled and all her animals . . . they weren't able to get any animals out at all."
To provide some help to wildlife and pets affected by the bushfires click here
| Heat Wave Causes Wildlife Deaths |  |  |  |
| Thursday, 29 January 2009 07:31 |
| Wildlife Victoria volunteers have been at the site of the largest Grey Headed Flying Fox Colony Wednesday and Thursday of the heat wave and are heading back today, by the end of the first two days over 1000 GHFF's had died from the heat.
Volunteers spent hours spraying water onto the juvenile creche in an effort to rehydrate in situ. The GHFF's were happy for our efforts and readily drank the water either straight from the stream or from droplets on their wings and bodies. Many were saved but with another day of intense heat the prognosis does not look good. Dozens of juveniles and some adults were taken into care by a licensed volunteer wildlife rehabilitator from Wildlife Vic. These are the fortunate ones, they will spend the next two days in the flying fox aviary at the carer's house which is situated in a cool part of her garden and has a fine mist spray from the sprinkler giving the bats constant relief from the overwhelming heat. Today volunteers are gearing up for more of the same. They will weather the heat to bring relief to the colony in the hope of saving just a few more. Ringtail possums have also suffered badly from the last week of heat and are coming in to shelters and vets in enormous numbers, many with burns to their feet from walking on the hot ground, something that is an anomoly for these animals who prefer to move from shrub to shrub without going to the ground. If you would like to donate to help Wildlife Victoria click here To help the wildlife in your area put out some bowls of water.
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| Fires threaten the state | | | |
| Bushfires threaten Wildlife Survival – affected wildlife already in care PLEASE DO NOT RING THE EMERGENCY NUMBER EXCEPT WITH INJURED WILDLIFE Feb 2009
Please donate now to Wildlife Victoria's Urgent Bushfire Appeal 2009 - click here.
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Hundreds of thousands of wild animals are killed, injured and orphaned throughout Australia as a direct consequence of human activities. As government resources for wildlife management dwindle, much of the work of rescuing and caring for these animals falls on the shoulders of volunteer organisations such as Wildlife Victoria
Mr. Rob Gell
Patron, Wildlife Victoria
