The bushfires in Australia have recently touched the outskirts of Sydney.
“Catastrophic” bushfires have resulted in the deaths of 350 koalas , according to the president of the Koala Hospital Port Macquarie.
Sue Ashton, the president of the hospital said that the hospital is treating at 12 least koalas, but that a great deal more are expected to be dead.
“Where we thought we had koalas, we now think they’ve been incinerated,” Ashton told Nine News Australia on Friday.
She continued: The fire is so intense that what’s happening is the fire goes through and the little koalas and other wildlife are just burned to pieces and become ash. So it’s absolutely horrific.
The hospital’s Instagram page shared a photo of one of the koalas being treated.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B4XOzC9n8re/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
It is believed that up to 600 koalas live on the Lake Innes Nature Reserve in New South Wales, Ashton said, and two-thirds of the habitat has already burned.
This news comes just months after koalas were declared ‘functionally extinct‘ in Australia, due to the effects of rising temperatures and heatwaves across the country.
The bushfires have since approached Sydney, with recent reports stating that flame retardant had to be dropped on Sydney’s northern outskirts as some bushfires approached within 15km of the city centre.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
