Black walk for suffering wildlife

There was no human life lost but volunteers are now counting the cost to wildlife after fires tore through more than 900 hectares of national park in Coolum last week.
An army of volunteers from Wildlife Rescue Sunshine Coast (WRSC) is currently conducting ‘black walks’ through the burnt land to look for dead and dying animals.
The group started the walks on Monday at 8am and in an interview with ABC Radio WRSC co-founder Claire Smith said black walks are important after a fire.
“We want to find dead or dying animals for two reasons. We want to see what impact the fire had and we also want to find any suffering animals,” she said.
“Then our job is to get them out of there and get them to the Australian Wildlife Hospital at Australia Zoo and have them humanely euthanized so that the suffering ends.”
Ms Smith said the group had found mainly dead reptiles such as snakes, lizards and bearded dragons.
But the good news was they had spotted four adult male kangaroos, a wallaby and plenty of animals tracks that showed the quick escape of mass animals, plus small green shoots already showing through the blackened bushlands.
Ms Smith said the walk was called a black walk because the land became an “alien-like” environment.
“It’s been bush one minute and vibrant and in the space of a few hours it becomes desolate, dark, black, smelly and without life,” she said.
The fires are now out and while the emergency and volunteer services have a well-deserved rest, police and fire investigators are still investigating the cause of the fires that tore through more than 900 hectares of national park and threatened almost 60 homes last Thursday.
The WRSC is a volunteer-based animal rescue group that operates 24-hours a day seven days a week.
Anyone who would like to volunteer, donate or report an animal rescue emergency can visit www.wrsc.org.au, or phone 0432 310 556 or 0415 839 554.