By Debbie Cuthbertson and Liam Mannix
The emotion crackles in Michael Lynch’s voice as he describes the carnage he has witnessed.
Dr Lynch, Zoos Victoria’s chief vet, has spent long days tending to native animals, mainly koalas, at a field hospital outside Mallacoota this week.
An injured koala, nicknamed Princess Fiona, has been treated at the Mallacoota triage centre for burns to her face and paws. Credit: Rachel Mounsey
Of the injuries, most are “hands and feet burns of varying intensity”, he says. “Some of these animals will take months to heal.”
Far more than have been rescued – mainly larger animals such as kangaroos and wallabies – have been euthanised out in the bush, as they are too badly injured to be saved. And many more again are still stuck behind the flames.
Michael Lynch, Zoos Victoria's head of veterinary services, examines a dehydrated and starving male koala delivered to the centre on Friday morning. Credit: Rachel Mounsey
After more than two weeks without food and water, it’s a race against time to save animals who survived the fires before they starve or die of thirst, with much of their habitat wiped out.
“If they are in uniformly burnt areas, after a few weeks they’re not going to survive,” Dr Lynch said.
“What we're seeing now is changing with the animals coming in, they're all dehydrated because they get their moisture mainly from leaves… post fire, they're starving and losing condition, they’ve lost weight.
“In terms of resilience for coping with weight loss, they don’t have a lot of reserves. If they're out there and not found, they'll starve. They won't have any leaves to eat.”
The makeshift Mallacoota animal hospital is the beating heart of a joint operation by the zoo, local vets and volunteers, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and the Australian Defence Force.
It’s one of three triage centres set up in the past fortnight – the others are at Bairnsdale and Corryong - to treat wildlife rescued from the state’s bushfires.
Working into the evening, Dr Lynch removes a remaining leaf from the mouth of a koala. Credit: Rachel Mounsey
Up to 70 injured, dehydrated and starving koalas found on the edge of the fire ground have been brought to the Mallacoota centre over the past fortnight by DELWP staff and locals, some under military escort, from the edges of the fire grounds.
“It’s a real communal effort,” Dr Lynch said. “That's the thing that really strikes me.
“These volunteers from this community, they’re doing washing, cutting gum leaves… There are some older couples watching koalas and how much they're eating.”
Once the animals are sufficiently healthy to transport, they are put in a crate with blankets and eucalypt leaves, lined up on the tarmac and loaded onto military aircraft.
Koalas sit in transport cages at Mallacoota Airport as they await their flight.Credit: Rachel Mounsey
As the animals fly out, so do some of the rotating teams of vets brought in to treat them, who turn over every five to seven days. Dr Lynch and his team will leave on Tuesday with their precious cargo, after conducting a handover with the incoming team who land on Monday night.
Back at Zoos Victoria, administrative staff have cleared out spaces at its three locations - Melbourne Zoo in Parkville, Werribee Zoo and Healesville Sanctuary – for the incoming evacuees. Some animals are also being placed with wildlife carers.
Animal storage boxes are being readied, but some creatures will need purpose-built enclosures, particularly to set up permanent captive breeding colonies.
In anticipation of the influx, the zoo has begun training community vets more used to dealing with cats and dogs on how to treat koalas with burns and smoke inhalation.
The precious cargo are loaded onto a military plane bound for Melbourne.Credit: Rachel Mounsey
Scientists estimate billions of animals have perished in the vast bushfires that have torn through millions of hectares of forest across Australia’s south-east. Up to 100 endangered species have lost most of their living areas.
“We’re in the calm before the storm,” says Zoos Victoria’s CEO Dr Jenny Gray. “We can anticipate what is coming, but we don’t know yet. Some areas may have got off lightly. Some areas, from the pictures, are absolutely destroyed.”
Princess Fiona's burned feet are wrapped in layers of bandages and dressings. Credit: Rachel Mounsey
But when the roadblocks finally come off, the zoo’s vets fear they could walk into an ecological catastrophe.
“This is a race against time,” says Dr Marissa Parrott, one of the zoo’s reproductive biologists. “We need to get in as quickly as possible when it is safe. And we need to have everything as ready as possible for supplementary feeding – or for evacuation…
“We have a commitment that no Victorian species will go extinct on our watch,” she said. “If we need to, we’re going to do that. We are ready to be in this for the long run.”
To donate to the Zoos Victoria Bushfire Emergency Wildlife Fund, visit https://donate.zoo.org.au/donation