Billions of animals are now believed to have been wiped out in the catastrophic Australian bushfires — with scientists also warning that at least one species has become extinct, according to a new report.
After warning last week that half a billion animals may have been lost, experts revised the death toll, saying the number is now believed to be in the “many, many, many billions,” The Age reported.
“We are all very, very worried,” Euan Ritchie, associate professor of wildlife ecology at Deakin University, told the newspaper Wednesday.
“Realistically, the number of animals killed in these fires is many, many, many billions. And we’ll never know what that true number is, because for some species we don’t know their abundance and what we have lost,” he added.
The blazes have claimed at least 25 human lives, authorities say, and razed an area twice the size of Maryland.
A critically endangered miniature kangaroo, the long-footed potoroo, is also feared to be extinct after its last remaining habitat was razed in the fires, the report said.
Last week, reports that nearly 480 million animals had been impacted by the fires made headlines around the world.
But the scientist behind that figure said it was “highly conservative” and he has since doubled his prediction — claiming up to 1 billion animals may have died across the nation.
“What we’re seeing is the effects of climate change,” Chris Dickman, a professor of ecology at the University of Sydney, said in a statement Wednesday.
He called Australia the “canary in a coal mine” when it came to climate change, meaning the effects were seen there “most severely and earliest.”
“We’re probably looking at what climate change may look like for other parts of the world in the first stages in Australia at the moment,” Dickman warned.
Old-growth rainforests on Victoria’s east coast that were destroyed in the blazes may never grow back, according to The Age report.
“If they get burnt, probably they die. And we’re not sure they then regenerate,” said Dr. John Morgan, who leads a plant ecology lab at La Trobe University.
“That’s unheard of,” he continued. “This is what people are really worried about.”
The situation is so dire that professional snipers in helicopters this week will shoot up to 5,000 camels in remote South Australia that are drawing on dwindling water supplies.
Some communities in Victoria are also facing such stretched resources that authorities are asking residents not to drink the tap water.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week announced the government would allocate $1.4 billion to assist with recovery efforts, but his tepid response to the disaster has drawn condemnation from Australians.