Koalas who were affected by the Australian bushfires are finally being released from hospitals
The year has pretty much just started yet so many tragic events have already taken place. Kobe Bryant’s passing shook the world to its core, the Australian bushfires killed millions of animals and people, and of course, the latest: a pandemic.
Because of the current situation with coronavirus, it is easy to forget all of the other terrible events that took place. But let’s not forget that just a few weeks ago, koalas were found burning in the wilderness down under. It was recorded as the worst fire season ever.
Now we know, it sounds like we are just re-dumping a ton of miserable news on you… But that’s not what we’re doing.
In fact, we are only bringing up all of this because have some good news: the koalas that were hospitalized during the fires are finally being released.
Back during the height of the fires, over 12.6 million hectares of land was burned, 33 lives were gone, and 434 million tons of carbon dioxide was emitted into the atmosphere, according to the Department of Home Affairs.
The worst part (as if it could get any worse) was the damage to Australia’s wildlife. Over one billion animals’ lives were heartbreakingly lost in the fires.
The koalas were hit particularly hard in the mid-north coast region of NSW. 30% of koalas were killed in this region while hospitalizing many more, according to Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley.
Port Macquarie Koala Hospital earned praise from all over the world because of its staff’s dedication to helping the koalas to the best of their ability during the fires. Nearly 2 million dollars was donated to the hospital via a GoFundMe campaign.
It was not ideal to take koalas bears out of their home in the wilderness and have them temporarily live in the hospital, but it was necessary.
It has been five months since the height of the horrific incident and now finally today, koalas are being released from the hospital.
The first koala to be admitted to the hospital back in October of last year, Anwen, was finally brought back to her home last week on April 3. Photos of her going home were taken and it is the most precious thing of all time.
26 other koalas are set to be released over the next couple of days and, thanks to a ton of rainfall specifically in the mid-north coast area, habitats have recovered much earlier than predicted.
“This is a heart-warming day for us — to be able to release so many of our koalas back to their original habitats, even to their original tree in some cases, it makes us very happy,” Sue Ashton, president of Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, said.
“It marks a proud moment for Australia, to see our koala population and habitat starting to recover from what was such a devastating time,” Ashton added.
The bushfires were a terrible thing to have happened. The good news, though, is that while the year has been off to an awful start, there is a happy ending to be found.
We are so happy the koalas had a happy ending and we are hopeful the rest of the world will have that again soon too.
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