On Saturday, helicopters loaded with carrots and sweet potatoes flew over burned-out rock country in New South Wales and let the vegetables fall. The customers were brush-tailed rock-wallabies, an endangered species that has lost much of its habitat to the bushfires.
Officials said the wallabies themselves came through the flames. Their surroundings did not. Drought had already thinned the habitat, and the fires left almost nothing to eat on the rocky slopes where the animals live, according to NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean.
It was the largest delivery of food ever made for the species.
Where the food went
Over about a week, the state sent around 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) of sweet potatoes and carrots to six colonies in the Capertee and Wolgan valleys, and another 2,200 pounds to Yengo National Park. Kangaroo Valley, Jenolan, Oxley Wild Rivers and Curracubundi national parks each received 220 pounds of food and water.
The drops are one piece of a larger post-fire wildlife recovery effort. Cameras will go up where possible so staff can check how well the wallabies are eating and which other animals turn up in the same areas. The state also plans to control the wallabies’ predators.
Kean said the feeding will not stop soon. “At this stage, we expect to continue providing supplementary food to rock-wallaby populations until sufficient natural food resources and water become available again in the landscape, during post-fire recovery,” he said.
More than 1 billion animals have been wiped out by the Australian wildfires, according to Today.
Sources
Sources
- Australian government airdrops food to animals amid fires
- Australia bushfires: Carrots dropped from helicopters feed wallabies
