As Australia’s bushfires continue to burn, the work of a team of Okanagan volunteers is ongoing to help save the at-risk wildlife.
The team of six has been working 15 to 17 hours a day since arriving on the south coast of New South Wales almost two weeks ago.
Volunteers have been caring for kangaroos, wallabies, wombats and flying foxes, and stepping in wherever they are needed to build and stock feeding stations, rescue wildlife and string fruit in the trees.
The team found and cared for a kangaroo they named Suzie Q. but said she was too badly burned to survive.
“The team is doing fine, but Suzie Q, that ‘roo that we captured and darted just a few days later, she had to be euthanized,” said volunteer Brad Pattison.
“When we found her she was living in a graveyard… surrounded by all of her friends and family members, there were bodies every few steps that you took.
“There was a tail left and part of a skeleton of a joey. It was horrible.”
Even amid such tragic scenes, the team of animal lovers is persevering.
“You have these travesties, but at the same time you have these amazing moments where it’s, ‘Wow, we are helping save a species in this geographical location,,” said Pattison.
On Monday night, the team moved to another area near the country’s capital of Canberra, where they’re helping teams from Germany and New Zealand care for koalas as an 8,000-hectare blaze creeps toward the city limits.
Pattison and his team have no return date set, sayin they plan to stay put and continue doing whatever it takes to save the wildlife so badly threatened by the destructive fires.