Weren’t they in danger due to the rampant wildfires a few years back. I even donated to the fire crews. I’m pretty sure they were trying to evacuate wildlife in particular the koalas.
We've had a few really bad fire seasons in the last decade or so that have caused massive destruction over very wide areas. Kangaroo Island in South Australia used to have a real problem with koalas, they weren't native there and were introduced, where they quickly bred to plague proportions and regular culls were necessary.
Kangaroo Island doesn't have that problem any more, not since the fires. It will regenerate over a decade or so but right now there's a lot of wildlife carers and agricultural workers being kept very busy.
Koalas are very difficult to look after and almost impossible to relocate because their diet is restricted to only a few very specific species of tree. Finding food for them isn't easy.
Australian bush recovers from fire incredibly quickly compared to the forests in other countries. Unless the fire is particularly intense almost all trees will live through it. Our ecosystems have evolved with fire being a regular part of the seasons and many species of tree won't even flower until after they have been burnt.
In regular bushfires everything looks like charred remains just after a fire but 6 weeks later it's all green again and bursting in to flower. That's normal bushfires though, what we've been getting lately are anything but normal and they are directly caused by human intervention.
In South Australia alone we have lost more than 2000 species of plant and 30 species of animals caused directly by the prevention of bushfires. Preventing fires means many species of plant can't flower, so they become extinct. And the animals that relied on those plants are also doomed to a horrible dwindling existence.
And because we keep preventing bushfires detritus keeps building up under the trees, and when we do get a fire come through it burns much hotter than it normally would and leaves nothing but complete destruction in it's wake.
Attitudes are slowly changing these days and we are now deliberately burning off areas every couple of years as it should be, but we also have uni students that call themselves "Greenies" fighting to prevent the controlled burns. Some of the more recent and most destructive large fires in Victoria can be directly attributed to the actions of these Greenies.
