Art by Breathe a Blue Ocean. Filmed and edited by Adam Stan Photography. Video: Adam Stan

Sand art for Australia wildlife: “Banksy of Barwon Heads” explains reason behind koala etched in sand on Victoria beach

By Sarah Jane Bell 21 January 2020 (ABC Ballarat) – An image of a koala clinging to a tree branch that has been etched in the sands of a Victorian beach has garnered international attention. A photograph of the 120-metre-long artwork near Barwon Heads, south of Geelong, shows a sunset obscured by bushfire smoke and has touched […]

Aerial views showing Australia landscape before and after the megafires of 2019 and 2020. Photo: Nearmap

Australia bushfires from the air: before and after images show scale of devastation

By Naaman Zhou 16 January 2020 (The Guardian) – More than 10.7m hectares of land have burnt so far in Australia’s bushfires – larger than the total area of South Korea, or Portugal, and 1.3 times the size of Scotland. The ongoing and unprecedented bushfire crisis has spread across six states and multiple months. In New South Wales alone, the […]

A boy cradles the body of dead endangered Brush-tailed rock-wallaby, found near a muddy puddle of water after a bushfire in Gosford, New South Wales, Australia, on 6 January 2020. The boy asked his father, Tim Faulkner, “They’re all dying aren’t they Dad?” Faulkner told him it was his job to save the world. Photo: Tim Faulkner / Facebook

Estimated number of animals killed in Australia bushfires rises to more than one billion – “Events like this may well hasten the extinction process for a range of species”

8 January 2020 (University of Sydney) – Professor Chris Dickman has revised his estimate of the number of animals killed in bushfires in NSW to more than 800 million animals, with a national impact of more than one billion animals. Several weeks ago Professor Dickman, from the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Science, estimated that 480 […]

Kangaroos flee bushfires in Monaro, New South Wales, 30 December 2019. Photo: Mitchell Lyons / 7 News / News.com.au

Nearly 500 million animals killed in Australia bushfires since September 2019 – 30 percent of koalas incinerated by “unfightable” fires in New South Wales – Thousands of fire-injured sheep shot on Kangaroo Island

By Marnie O’Neill 1 January 2020 (News.com.au) – There are concerns that entire species of plants and animals may have been wiped out by bushfires following estimations that 480 million animals may die as a result of the crisis. Ecologists from the University of Sydney estimate almost half a billion mammals, birds and reptiles may […]

Toni Doherty rescues a koala from a bushfire in New South Wales, 19 November 2019. Video: Guardian News

Video: Woman risks life to save burnt koala from Australia bushfire – “I knew if we didn’t get him down from the tree, then he would have been up there amongst the flames”

By Eric Todisco 20 November 2019 (People) – Amid the raging bushfires in South Wales, Australia, a hero emerged to save the life of a young koala. [Warning: Desdemona has a pretty thick skin when it comes to doom, but this video made me weep like a child. –Des] The dramatic rescue was caught on […]

A koala with burns suffered from Australia’s unprecedented early bushfires receives treatment for dehydration at the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital in November 2019. Photo: Saeed Khan / AFP / Getty Images

Koalas are not functionally extinct, but they need our help

By Jackson Ryan 24 November 2019 (CNET) – The koala is one of the most iconic Australian marsupials. The grey fuzzballs spend nearly all their time in the trees, surviving on a diet of toxic gum leaves and a healthy routine of extended naps. As Australia suffered through unprecedented bushfires in the past two weeks, […]

Smoke rises from the Darwank fires near Forster-Tuncurry on the New South Wales mid north coast, 30 October 2019. Photo: Martin Von Stroll

Hundreds of koalas perish as Australia bushfires rage – “This is just a national tragedy”

By Amy Woodyatt 30 October 2019 (CNN) – More than 350 koalas are feared to have been killed by bushfires in Australia’s New South Wales state, animal experts say. The blazes — which have been burning near the coastal township of Port Macquarie since Monday — have destroyed more than 2,000 hectares (4,492 acres) of […]

Australian Koala Foundation declares koalas “functionally extinct”

By Christine Adams-Hosking 9 May 2019 (The Conversation) – Today the Australian Koala Foundation announced they believe “there are no more than 80,000 koalas in Australia”, making the species “functionally extinct”. While this number is dramatically lower than the most recent academic estimates, there’s no doubt koala numbers in many places are in steep decline. […]

Video: Loggers chop down tree with koala family still in it

[Sadly, this is very common: Deforestation in Australia killing and mutilating koalas – Loggers say finding dead koalas is ‘like a daily thing, sometimes a couple every hour’ –Des] By Stephen Messenger4 February 2015 (The Dodo) – A distressing new video shows a gum tree being felled by loggers while a koala and her baby […]

Desperate koalas accept water from humans in fire-ravaged Australia

By Stephen Messenger 6 January 2015 (The Dodo) – In a touching show of solidarity amidst so much devastation, a wild koala stranded by wildfires in South Australia was captured on film accepting help from a passerby — offering proof that a wellspring of hope can emerge from even the simplest of gestures, and a […]

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