An updated study triples the previous estimate, stopping at 1 billion, of animals killed or displaced by Australian fires. There are at least 3 billion.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himNearly 3 billion koalas, kangaroos and other animals are estimated to have been killed or displaced in the bushfires that hit Australia last summer. In fact, an updated study triples the previous estimate at 1 billion.
One of the worst natural disasters in modern history and a chilling estimate, the one contained in the new research commissioned by WWF Australia and which reveals the devastating scale of the fires on native animals.
The harrowing video showing hundreds of kangaroos and koalas dead in the fires in Australia
"It is almost inconceivable that so many animals are lost and displaced," Professor Chris Dickman of the University of Sydney, who coordinated the study, told ABC News Australia, who estimated the animals at "only" one billion last January. lost or displaced.
At the time, however, Professor Dickman made it clear that that figure, which included only animals lost in the fires in New South Wales, was limited to certain species.
Apocalypse in Australia: the number of wild animals killed in the fires exceeds one billion
The new estimates
Now, however, the team of 10 scientists from different universities across the country has examined the impact of fires on mammals, reptiles, birds and frogs (but turtles and fish are not yet included) and updated previous results, also including wildfires outside New South Wales - including East Gippsland, northeastern Victoria and Kangaroo Island.
And here they are the pains and brutal numbers:
- 143 millions of mammals
- 2,46 billions of reptiles
- 180 millions of birds
- 51 million frogs
To calculate the figures, the researchers estimated the density of animals in each place where the fire passed and multiplied it by the burned area. The study did not distinguish deaths from displacement, as estimating the number of runaway animals would have been too difficult. But Professor Dickman claimed that however, over 90% of the affected animals may have died.
A real disaster on wildlife, in short, which is unprecedented in history except, perhaps, as Lily van Eeden, another lead author of the study, states, the largest oil spills in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
These figures were revealed in an interim report titled Bushfires: Australia 2019-2020: The Wildlife Toll, commissioned by the WWF. The final report is expected to be completed by the end of August 2020.
Sources: WWF Australia / ABC News Australia
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