This article recounts the harrowing experience of veterinarians and wildlife carers during Australia's devastating 2019-20 bushfires. It highlights the emotional toll of treating hundreds of injured and dying animals and the profound impact the fires had on the Australian landscape and its wildlife.
Dr Kimberly Vignette Herrin, a veterinarian officer at Sydney’s Taronga zoo, found treating hundreds of animals injured and dying from the black summer bushfires exhausting and emotional. 'I don’t think I have actually dealt with the impact.'They spent their lives and careers looking after animals and when the 2019-20 fires erupted they responded on the front lines.
Veterinarians and carers recall those months – and the impact it has had since he day before the fire front hit, the forest went deadly silent. Normally, says wildlife carer Susie Pulis, “if you are driving or walking in the bush it’s nothing but chitter chatter. There’s lots and lots of noise, all the different bird life and insects and everything buzzing around.” But this was different. “The birds had gone.” Pulis and her son were scouting around for animals before the fires hit. “We could see the fire in the distance, we could see the flames., was so intense and dynamic that it created its own weather patterns, forming thunderstorms kilometres ahead, lightning strikes that were igniting new fires. It would burn for nearly four months. “The damage was horrific” Pulis says. “It was like walking on the moon. There was just not a blade of anything left, the trees were black matchsticks. The ground was really, really thick ash, it was so unstable. You just can’t fathom it really.” In December 2019 the sky went black in many parts of Australia. In the following weeks, unprecedented bushfires killed 33 people, destroyed thousands of homes, decimated about 3bn animals and 24m hectares of habitat. For those who devote their lives to caring for animals, these days will never been forgotte
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