Nearly 2,000 kilograms of sweet potatoes and carrots, about 4,400 pounds, have been dropped from the air onto fire-scarred rock country in New South Wales. The target was 11 colonies of brush-tailed rock-wallabies, an endangered species, according to a government media release.
State Environment Minister Matt Kean explained the problem in a statement. The wallabies usually survive a blaze itself, he said, but the fire strips the vegetation around their rocky homes and leaves them “stranded with limited natural food.” Drought had already put them under stress. “Survival challenging for the wallabies without assistance” was how he put it.
The state plans to keep the deliveries going. “We expect to continue providing supplementary food to rock-wallaby populations until sufficient natural food resources and water become available again in the landscape,” Kean said. Feral predator control will run alongside the drops.
A wider toll
University of Sydney ecology professor Chris Dickman estimates that more than 1 billion animals have been killed by the fires, directly or indirectly. Those that flee the flames or shelter underground can come back to ground with too little food to support them, he said, or fall to feral predators.
Recovery work is under way in other parts of the country too. On Kangaroo Island, off the South Australian coast, tens of thousands of koalas have died and other unique species have been badly hit. The South Australian government and Nature Foundation SA are raising funds and working to rebuild habitat.
More than a hundred fires were still burning across New South Wales on Sunday, though none at emergency level, and forecasts for the coming week included rain. A firefighter died over the weekend fighting a fire in Victoria, bringing the bushfire death toll to 27. The NSW Rural Fire Service said more than 2,000 homes had been destroyed this season.
