The Australian government dropped thousands of vegetables in New South Wales from helicopters in a bid to make survival possible for the injured animals, whose habitat is almost devastated by the wildfires.
The destructive fire in Australia has taken the lives of 27 people up till now, besides one billion animals.
To save the surviving animals from dying of hunger, the Australian government decided to airdrop carrots and potatoes on a large scale.
The mission to feed the starving animals is named ‘Operation Rock Wallaby’ and is mainly aimed at saving rock wallabies.
Wallabies were already declared as ‘endangered species’ even before the wildfire, and now when there is nothing for them to eat such as grass, leaves, shrubs, they are more prone to extinction.
That’s the reason why Operation Rock Wallaby is considered to be extremely important and decisive for the Australian government.
New South Wales Minister for Energy and Environment, Mathew Kean said that dropping food from helicopters was just a temporary measure taken to assist and secure the number of endangered species.
He said: “The wallabies typically survive the fire itself, but are then left stranded with limited natural food as the fire takes out the vegetation around their rocky habitat.
“The wallabies were already under stress from the ongoing drought, making survival challenging for the wallabies without assistance.”
Jess Abrahams, a nature campaigner in the Australian Conservation Foundation, appreciated the urgent measure and called it a ‘sensible emergency response.’
But he stressed that some long-term steps must be taken to secure nature and to combat the disastrous climatic changes.
As reported by The Sydney Morning Herald, Abrahams said: “I can’t underline how urgent it is, and we need to take real action on climate change nationally and globally if we want to protect our beautiful wildlife.
“This may well push them [rock wallabies] over the brink which is a terrible thought, and shows how vulnerable our wildlife are to changes in the natural environment.”
According to Professor Chris Dickman, an ecologist at the University of Sydney, more than one billion animals are burnt to death till now.
Revising his prior declaration of the death of 480 million animals, he said to Huffington Post: “The original figure – the 480 million – was based on mammals, birds and reptiles for which we do have densities, and that figure now is a little bit out of date.
“It’s over 800 million given the extent of the fires now – in New South Wales alone. If 800 million sounds a lot, it’s not all the animals in the firing line.”
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