Bushfire heroes put rescued koalas on the road to recovery

A rescued koala injured in a bushfire in Kangaroo Island, Australia.

In one of Port Macquarie Koala Hospital's intensive care units, Flame is climbing again for the first time in weeks.

Its fur is shorter than usual and brown in parts, telltale signs of a brush with death.The koala, nicknamed by its rescuer, was brought in with burnt paws and nose and patches of singed fur.

For about six weeks it huddled in a basket, but now Flame has enough strength to painstakingly ascend the branch frames in its room. Today, it is sleeping.

Located almost 390km north of Sydney, the koala hospital has seen a flood of patients as Australia's wildfire crisis takes a heavy toll on the animals and their habitats.

As ferocious blazes have destroyed 8.4 million hectares - an area larger than Scotland - of Australian bushland, it is estimated that 40 per cent of the country's 80,000 endangered koalas have been killed.

The severe drought and record high temperatures that have been ravaging Australia since the start of the summer have led to the deaths of as many as half a billion wild animals.

At the Port Macquarie hospital there are now 75 koalas in care, rescued from the burning bush by exhausted firefighters, homeowners fleeing the flames and passing evacuees who spot the marsupials collapsed at the side of the road.

"They're in shock, they're stressed, they've never seen humans or been in a car before," Sue Ashton, the hospital spokesman, said of the growing list of patients.

"We anaesthetise them, then cut away the dead skin, bathe them, treat them with cream, gauze and bandages."

A rescued koala is treated by a team of four vets - one person on each paw - and a fifth person monitoring the heartbeat and breathing. Teams work around the clock to keep up with the new arrivals.

After initial surgery, staff change the bandages, redress the wounds regularly and also treat burns to sensitive noses and ears.

The hospital's 14 intensive care units are almost always full. But on a tour yesterday Ashton stopped at an empty room.

"We had to euthanise him," she said. "He was brought in from a drought area last week, his organs were so badly damaged. It was very sad... you try so hard to save them."

In another room, a koala named Janet was sitting with its joey, Jarrod, in its arms. They were evacuated from Hawkesbury just before the fires hit.

Nabiac Austin, a koala found at the side of a major motorway with burnt arms, nose and ears, was saved by a man who stopped his car and held up traffic to rescue it. It is now on the mend.

Baz, currently asleep on log, suffered severe ear burns. The marsupial's paws were "like charcoal" when it came in.

After five weeks of intensive one-on-one care, including a diet of puréed pumpkin and corn, it is on the road to recovery as well.

Staff try to record the GPS coordinates of where the Koalas are found. After six to nine months in recovery, they are supposed to be released back into the wild.

But the fires are so severe and the loss of life so heavy that responders are now being advised to kill orphaned joeys on the spot as long-term care is simply not available.

What is more, koalas only eat particular types of eucalyptus leaves, and koalas from different areas need a diet of different types of leaves, many of which have gone up in flames.

"We can't always relocate them... a change in diet may kill them," Ashton said.

On January 3, University of Sydney ecologists estimated that 480 million animals had already died as a result of the fires.

Dr Valentina Mella told the Daily Telegraph that the astonishing extent of the blazes will have dire long-term consequences for koalas and many other animals.

"All the animals that have survived not only have no place to go back to, they don't have food sources left.

"In a fire, the insects get wiped out too, the smaller animals who eat ants and other insects won't have food. Possums and gliders, if there are any left - most of them have been killed - they eat leaves and fruit, which have all been destroyed," she said.

Ashton said that the hospital believes two thirds of the local koala population surrounding Port Macquarie died in the fires that swept through the area six weeks ago.

"We don't find bodies. The fire was so intense that all that was left was ash," she said.

Koalas desperate for food will venture across roads and into people's back gardens, putting them at risk of being killed by traffic or pet dogs.

Bushfires are a yearly occurrence in Australia but this summer's blazes are unprecedented in scale. They started earlier and have spread further than before, leaving 25 people dead and thousands of homes destroyed.

Over the next few days, it is predicted that fires in New South Wales will join those in Victoria to form a "mega blaze".

With their habitat facing an uncertain future, many of the severely injured koalas at Port Macquarie hospital will have to become permanent residents there. Ashton feared for the animals if they were to be sent back into the wild. "If they have burned off their claws and they don't grow back properly, they can't climb and they can't live in the wild," she said.