The Threatened Species Commissioner has told the ongoing royal commission the last bushfire was an “ecological disaster” for wildlife in fire-affected areas, putting previously “secure” populations at risk.
In a nutshell, the commission wants to find out what can be done to prevent devastation from all natural disasters in the future, and what can be done now to help communities still trying to get back on their feet.
This story will be regularly updated throughout Wednesday.
Wednesday’s key moments:
Bushfires an ‘ecological disaster’ for wildlife
Conservative estimates put the number of animals killed in the bushfires at more than a billion and today the Threatened Species Commissioner backed up the severity of the impact on Australian wildlife.
“The impact of the 2019/20 bushfires on threatened species and other fauna and flora has been severe,” Dr Sally Box said.
In January, Dr Box was asked by the Federal Government to convene an expert panel on wildlife and threatened species bushfire recovery to look into the extent of the damage on flora and fauna.
“The Expert Panel … described the bushfires as an ecological disaster,” she said.
“The fires covered an unusually large area and in many places they burnt with an unusually high intensity.”
Dr Box said of the 1,800 species of plants and animals listed nationally as threatened, 300 were in the path of the fires.
“There are also many other fire threatened species that were considered secure before the fires, but have not lost much of their habitat and might be imperilled.”
Dr Box said the Expert Panel identified 119 animal species in need of “urgent management intervention” after the fires.
She said research to measure the continued fallout of the fires on both plants and animals, and whether any should now be considered “threatened”, was ongoing.
