Vets and animal activists help care for the NSW koala population following devastating bushfires

Heartwarming images reveal the hard work vets and animal activists are doing to save Australia’s koala population following the devastating bushfires. 

The horrific summer bushfire season saw 81 per cent of the koala population killed in New South Wales alone and left an estimated three billion animals killed or displaced across Australia.

The NSW Government has since committed $44.7million, the largest financial commitment ever conducted by the state, to help the koalas after a damning parliamentary inquiry released earlier in June found that koalas are likely to be extinct by 2050 if there is not government intervention to help the marsupials. 

Vets and animal activists have taken it upon themselves to help the endangered species who suffered a devastating loss due to the wildfires and other accidents which see them become orphaned.

Incredible images show the volunteers and working weighing koalas, feeding them, checking on their injuries as they work hard to protect the species and strengthen them. 

The Port Macquarie Koala Hospital boasts 150 volunteers, a specialised treatment room, intensive care unit and rehabilitation yards for koalas.

Their extraordinary volunteers care for the beloved Australian marsupial to ensure they are recovered and able to go back into the wild. 

Barbara Barrett has been volunteering for 20 years at the hospital and is seen embracing an eight-month-old joey named Livvy who was orphaned following a car crash. 

Clinical Director Cheyne Flanagan and fellow hospital volunteers Rita Saunders and Gaby Rivett were also spotted treating a young female koala named Oxey Kylie for car accident trauma.

Another fellow volunteer, Jeremy Bear, is cradling a baby male koala named Savoy Vince in a blanket before releasing him into the wild at Lake Innes Nature Reserve. 

The Australian Reptile Park workers on the Central Coast also care for healthy and injured koalas in hopes they can go back to their natural habitat and repopulate. 

Dean Reid, Head Mammal and Bird Keeper at the Australian Reptile Park oversees the koala program at the Australian Reptile Park.

He assists in weighing, feeding and caring for the marsupials. At one point he is even greeted fondly by a female koala fondly named Pirri along with her joey Prim during a general health check up. 

Following the parliamentary inquiry, 42 recommendations were made by the committee to protect the koala population, not just from bushfires.   

The inquiry had also cited that land clearing, climate change and logging as driving the koala population to the brink of extinction. 

‘Given the scale of loss as a result of the fires to many significant populations, the committee believes the koala will become extinct in NSW well before 2050,’ the report said. 

Committee chair and Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann said the threatened species was already in significant trouble before the bushfire season which killed about 5,000 koalas.

The report said the government estimates there are 36,000 koalas in the state, but that figure is unreliable.

Some of the recommendations include protecting koala habitat, cease the opening up of old-growth state forest for logging and the establishment of a well-resourced network of wildlife hospitals in key areas of the state staffed by suitably qualified personnel and veterinarians.