WATERHOLES, Australia -- The convoy of vehicles fleeing a raging inferno in the forest of southeastern Australia ferried a copious cargo: 11 koalas, 15 kangaroos, five chickens, two possums, two dogs and a lorikeet.Susan Pulis, who runs a wildlife shelter, had rallied her friends to pack the animals
WATERHOLES, Australia — The convoy of vehicles fleeing a raging inferno in the forest of southeastern Australia ferried a copious cargo: 11 koalas, 15 kangaroos, five chickens, two possums, two dogs and a lorikeet.
Wildlife in Australia was already under threat before these fires, as humans have changed the landscape. Agribusiness is among the top contributors to deforestation, which decimates wildlife populations, scientists say. At least a quarter of the koala population may have been lost in New South Wales, according to various estimates. Significant numbers of the southern brown bandicoot and the long-footed potoroo, a kind of wallaby whose entire habitat has been ravaged by fire, have also most likely been lost.
Tina Moon, a farmer in Sarsfield, a town in Victoria’s southeast, said many burned cattle in the region had to be euthanized. She said she had saved her house, but had no idea how she would make an income in the coming months. For Pulis, evacuating her few animals — which had already been rescued, some of them more than once, from starvation, dog attacks and car accidents — was simply part of life.
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