A school in Adelaide, Australia, was converted into a makeshift animal clinic where 150 volunteers are making sure that over 100 koalas rescued from bushfires are getting proper treatment.
As Adelaide Koala Rescue revealed, they have come up with a temporary hospital at Paradise Primary School while hoping to find another shelter as the school hall is reaching its capacity.
While the vets have already discharged dozens of koalas, new ones keep on coming in whereas some can’t be returned back to their natural habitat due to devastating effects of the bushfire crisis.
“We’ve had a few come in that were just singed all over. It’s almost as though they were curled in a ball when the flames, the heat just went straight over the top of them,” Adelaide Koala Rescue’s Director Jane Brister said.
“We’ve got a lot of people on our team who have seen things that they can’t unsee, who are going to need counseling. We’ve got team members who are traumatized because they want to be out there 24/7.”
As the director explained, the rescuers often come across completely scorched remains of koalas, whereas in other cases koalas have to be put down due to the extent of the injuries.
Fortunately, there is no lack of support from the public as the makeshift clinic already has 150 volunteers on top of receiving over $80,000 in donations following a plea on GoFundMe.
“We’ve had people fly in from interstate to help, we’ve got people from overseas coming over now as well,” Brister added.
“We’ve also got people volunteering to come and deliver browse (trees) for the koalas, we’ve got people volunteering to wash all the towels that we go through for the bedding. The community support has been wonderful.”
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Replaced!