Incredible Wildlife story

[Misty Glen]

I live in Australia and recently we've been having a pretty severe heatwave lasting several weeks, with temperatures usually greatly exceeding 40C (104F), which means in the sun it can be as hot as 60C (140F) or more.

Within this period of time we've also had the Tour Down Under, a really major cycling event, the result of which is that there's a lot of cyclists about at the moment.

The combination of the extremely hot weather and the increased cyclist population has meant that there have been encounters such as the following story which comes from a guy my parents know.

Basically, a small group of cyclists were riding in the hills (scrubland) and came across a wild koala on the road. This isn't particularly unusual for the area.

It turns out that due to the extreme weather, and the fact that the koala was a weanling, it was under considerable stress and was quite desperate for water. So much so that it was willing to approach the cyclists and take water from them, as you can see here:


This says something about the severity of the weather considering koalas typically need very little water since they get most of it from the eucalyptus leaves they eat.

Here's the story the guy put online:
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2009/02/03/2481612.htm?site=adelaide&rotator=true
And his blog with a number of similar stories about heat-affected koala that other people have told him about:
http://blogs.abc.net.au/sa/2009/02/thirsty-koala-1.html?program=adelaide_big_red_roving

[Drmchaser]

Wow that is amazing, thank you for sharing the story with us, what a cute Koala.

[Misty Glen]

here's a gallery of heat-stressed koalas getting some respite:

http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,23607,5037290-5014156,00.html#

and another gallery of just general geeze-its-bleeping-hot photos:

http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,23607,5037172-5014156,00.html

and for those of you who work with Fahrenheit, here's some conversions for some of the temperatures mentioned in these galleries:
40C=104F
42C=107.6F
48C=118.4F
50C=122F
54.1C=129.4F
55.5C=131.9F
69.6C=157.3F

And if anyone's wondering, Anzac Highway is just outside the city, so it's pretty unusual to get koalas there.
Also, there's a bit of Aussie slang used in these galleries so if you can't work something out let me know and I'll provide the translation.

[Fawn]

Aww, thats really amazing

Well not so amazing seeing as the fact here is that the koala is so deserpate for water that it's willing to come up to humans for it but, it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that these kinds of interations between the wild and humans can happen on a genuinely kind and peacefull basis. The bottom one is a very, very cool picture. Props to the cyclists

[Vitani]

Thats an amazing story Misty! Poor little fella...Its been on the news majorly here ( I'm in NZ ) about the fires and temperatures...Makes me feel poofy for moaning about our temps...Its just the 90-100% humidity thats killing me even though its only 28 deg >.< But to see that desperation in a wild animal really hammers home just how bad it is....

Well done to them for sharing with him ( or her lol! ) because there are definately some out there who would have ignored his distress...

[Fawn]

Hey Misty, I dont know what city you're in, but I was just watching the news tonight about Aussies wildfires. How are you and your friends and family? It looked incredibly devastating...

[Misty Glen]

At this stage we're all ok, and there's no immediate threat to our lives or property.

I'm far enough away from the bushfires that I'm pretty safe here, but with the recent hot weather here the entire scrub is extremely flammable so everyone's on high alert.

The fires came within 10 or 20 km of my uncle's house, on the outskirts of the capital, but to the best of my knowledge they're ok. I've been keeping track of the fire's progress with a helpful map google put together. In case anyone else can find it useful, the link is here:
http://google-au.blogspot.com/2009/02/mapping-victorian-fires.html
The fires closest to my uncle's place have now been declared safe by the CFA, but there's two extremely big ones still relatively close by in Kinglake and Healesville, less than 20km away.

So far the Victorian fires have killed 183 people, which makes them Australia's most deadly fires in history, and one of the most deadly fires in the world in the last 150 years. I know of at least two towns that have just been completely wiped off the map, Kinglake being one of them, where the fires are still burning out of control.

I've been finding the news about the fires to be pretty upsetting. The saddest story I heard was of a couple who were travelling towards their town when the fires came through. The CFA wouldn't let them through so they couldn't let their dogs out, and the fire gutted their place and they lost everything including the dogs. I'm sure there's people who've lost more than them, such as all those people who are the sole survivors of entire families, but that story just hit pretty close to home. When she mentioned the dogs and her voice broke I cried with her. I'm crying now as I write this. I guess maybe I can just relate better than most.

I'll try to keep you all updated on how we're all doing over here. Thanks for your concern.

If you want to help, I'm know there's tons of charities that pretty urgently need the assistance. The Red Cross and The Salvation Army are the main ones that sort out the relief effort, or if you want to help animals affected by the fire there's Wildlife Victoria, or if you're strapped for cash even just a pint of blood would help, I'm sure.

[Fawn]

Okay good, glad to know that you and your family are doing okay. It really is a huge disaster, and trust me, my family and my friends have you all in our prayers, hope you stay safe girl! That is a really tragic story. All those people, and the animals...I will surely look into those charities, I have no problem giving blood! And hey, if I can give to orbis, I can probably give to relief efforts too.

[Misty Glen]

Thanks Fawn. It's really nice to know someone cares. I'm sure those affected would thank you for your generosity if they could, so I'll thank you in their stead.

Honestly, it's been really heart-warming seeing how people are responding to this disaster. There's been the really major stuff, like the city football stadium deciding on the day of a really major match to send all gate money to the Bushfire Appeal, then all the numerous small stuff which all adds up, like lots of the local small businesses donating part of their profits, or even just putting up signs to help the Red Cross.

Unfortunately I can't afford to donate money, but I'll be doing my bit by donating some blood.

[Misty Glen]

Just to update everyone on the latest news:

The death toll from the Victorian fires has broken 200, but the funds for the relief effort has broken AU$100million. To put it into perspective, the population of the country is only 20 million, so that's a lot of money for such a small population to raise in such a short space of time, especially considering the other disasters happening in the country, from the economical crisis, to the droughts, severe flooding up north, cyclones, and so forth.

Most of the fires are now out or declared safe by the CFA, but two very large ones are still burning out of control.

In my immediate area rain is predicted in the near future as a result of a cyclone coming inland across the continent, so that should severely decrease the risk of fires, at least temporarily. Just so you know, that cyclone won't be a cyclone by the time it gets to us, just strong storms, so it's nothing to panic about.

Here's a few photos demonstrating the extent of the fires, for anyone who's interested:

This image shows a 737 passenger airline shortly after takeoff from Melbourne airport, silhouetted against the smoke from the fires. Melbourne Airport was about 50km from the fire-front at one stage. I don't know how close the fires were in this photo.
This image shows scrub on fire at the edge of a paddock. These trees would be some variety of eucalyptus, making them extremely flammable.
Here is a NASA image of the fires from space.
This particularly apocalyptic image shows a fire truck being dwarfed by the firestorm behind it.
And on a lighter note, here is a slightly singed koala getting some much needed respite from a fireman. I'd like to point out here that these are wild animals who would not normally allow humans to approach them.
This image shows the hills on fire. It looks like it was taken at dusk, but if you look at the sunlight on the bushes in the foreground you can see that in actual fact it's much earlier in the day and the smoke is blocking out the sun.
These images show the towns of Kinglake and Marysville, two of the towns that were completely wiped off the map, and a house that was completely obliterated, except for the mailbox and a rainwater tank in the background. The latter is surprising since people were saying how they'd witnessed rainwater tanks melting from the heat of the fire.
And finally these photos here, here and here show some cars that were caught in the blaze. In the latter the pile-up would have happened when the people were fleeing from the fire. Apparently the smoke was so think they couldn't see in front of them, and they'd drive into other cars or obstacles or off the road, and they'd then abandon the cars to get away from the fire on foot.