Advertisement

'Smoulder' the Koala Recovers From Taree Bushfire Burns

Smoulder, a victim of the bushfires near Taree on the New South Wales Mid-North Coast, was recovering “really well” at a koala hospital on December 11.

The marsupial, which had been burned on the rump, his back heels and chin, was found living on the burnt fireground of the Koorainghat blaze.

“He came in extremely dehydrated and very hungry,” a worker at the hospital said in the video posted to Facebook by Port Stephens Koalas, adding that Smoulder may have gone two weeks without food.

Carers at the hospital plan to keep the injured koalas for the next 9-12 months while koala habitats damaged by the bushfires regrow.

Ecologist Mark Graham, who works with the Nature Conservation Council, told a recent New South Wales government parliamentary inquiry into the impact of the bushfires on the state’s koala population that many of the native animals’ bodies may never be found.

“This is by far the worst fire crisis and it’s growing rapidly,” Mark Graham said. Credit: Port Stephens Koalas via Storyful