Thousands of pounds of sweet potatoes and carrots fell from the sky over fire-scarred parts of New South Wales last week. The target was the brush-tailed rock-wallaby, an endangered species the state government is trying to keep alive after the bushfires.
According to a government media release, almost 2,000 kilograms, about 4,400 pounds, of vegetables went down to 11 different rock-wallaby colonies. The drop is part of a larger statewide recovery effort for wildlife.
State Environment Minister Matt Kean explained the reasoning. “The wallabies typically survive the fire itself, but are then left stranded with limited natural food as the fire takes out the vegetation around their rocky habitat,” he said. Initial assessments showed the habitat of several important populations had burned. The animals were also already stressed by drought, Kean said, which made survival hard without help.
The drops will go on, along with control of feral predators. “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.
The wider toll
University of Sydney ecology professor Chris Dickman estimates that more than 1 billion animals have been killed by the fires, either directly or indirectly. Animals that escape the flames by fleeing or going underground come back to land that cannot support them, he said, or they fall prey to feral predators.
Recovery work is underway across Australia. On Kangaroo Island, off the South Australian coast, tens of thousands of koalas have died and several other unique species have been badly hit. The South Australian government and Nature Foundation SA are raising money and working to restore habitat.
More than a hundred fires were still burning across New South Wales on Sunday, though none at emergency level. Rain was forecast for the week ahead. A firefighter died over the weekend fighting a blaze in Victoria, bringing the death toll from the fires to 27, and the NSW Rural Fire Service confirmed that more than 2,000 homes have been destroyed this fire season.
