More than one billion animals are thought to have perished in Australia's bushfires, but wildlife carers are doing all they can to help the ones who have survived.
On a rural property in the NSW South Coast town of Wandandian, a mobile vet clinic rolled in to meet its first patient of the day.It's just one of the hundreds of native animals that have been taken in by local wildlife carers after bushfires tore through the region in recent weeks.
"A lot of them have smoke inhalation as well as physical burns and then [we consider the] likelihood that we could rehabilitate them back into a natural environment, and that all plays a role in making a decision as to whether we keep going with them or not."During the two-day trip on Saturday and Sunday, the vets tended to snakes, flying foxes, and orphaned joeys.
Sydney University ecologist Mathew Crowther estimated more than one billion animals have been killed across Australia this bushfire season, including mammals, birds and reptiles."Invertebrates are vital to our ecosystems, providing pollination, soil turnover and seed removal," he said. "We've really got to learn from what's happened ... We've got to look at the causes, climate change, and consider how do we manage our landscapes."
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