One of the first wildlife surveys conducted following Australia鈥檚 worst wildfires on record has found almost no small, ground-dwelling animals in burnt areas.
At the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, fires tore along Australia鈥檚 drought-stricken east coast and burned more than 5 million hectares of forest in the state of New South Wales alone.
In February and March, Frank Lemckert at environmental consulting firm Eco Logical Australia led a survey funded by WWF Australia of seven sites within the fire-ravaged areas of Gibraltar Range National Park and Torrington State Conservation Area in northern New South Wales.
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To detect wildlife, the team visually inspected each of the seven sites for an hour and left bait and motion-sensing cameras out for 16 days.
The researchers spotted 鈥済ood numbers鈥� of birds and large mobile animals such as kangaroos and wallabies, which may have escaped to adjacent areas when the fires swept through and returned when vegetation began to re-sprout, says Lemckert.
However, the only small, ground-dwelling animals that were detected during the entire survey were five skink lizards, a swamp rat and one unidentified mammal. 鈥淣ormally, you would see lots of skinks running around in the leaf litter, and bandicoots, bush rats and antechinus, but we really didn鈥檛 see much of anything,鈥� says Lemckert.
Based on comparisons with historical records and his own experience, Lemckert estimates that over 90 per cent of small, ground-dwelling animals have been lost in the surveyed areas. They were probably too small to flee from the rapidly moving fires, he says.
It is too early to know if any species have been wiped out for good because they may turn up in future surveys, says Lemckert. Conservationists have been given hope this week by recent sightings of the 鈥� which was feared lost during the fires 鈥� in Kosciuszko National Park in southern New South Wales.
Lemckert hopes that animal populations will start to rebound as vegetation returns to burnt areas, but says it is unclear whether they will be able to make a full recovery before the next extreme wildfire event. Climate change is predicted to make Australia鈥檚 fire seasons more frequent and intense, which means 鈥渢here鈥檚 a real chance we鈥檒l lose species forever鈥�, he says.
