Simultaneous wildfires since December 2024 have left Grampians, Little Desert and the Great Otway National Parks in Australia devastated. Scientists say it will take decades for plants and wildlife to recover.
Michael Clarke, emeritus professor of zoology at La Trobe University in Melbourne, told Mongabay by email the area burnt in Little Desert alone is “nearly six times” that burnt in the recent Los Angeles fires. The fire in Little Desert burnt most of the shrubland and eucalyptus habitats, crucial for wildlife such as the threatened malleefowl (Leipoa ocellata), and the large ant-blue butterfly (Acrodipsas brisbanensis), he added.
John White, associate professor in wildlife and conservation biology at Deakin University in Victoria told Mongabay by email that although many animals would’ve died in the fires across the parks, several individuals manage to “escape, hide underground, or deep in logs or tree hollows” and emerge after the fires have passed.
One immediate challenge for this surviving wildlife is finding food. While supplying food to all affected species for long periods isn’t sustainable, White said, “isolated populations of rock wallabies in the Grampians have had aerial delivery of carrots to sustain them in the immediate period before the grasses start to shoot.”
Another challenge for the wildlife is escaping predators. Both Clarke and White said that non-native predators like cats and foxes benefit from vegetation burning down as the native wildlife lose cover to hide. They added that both predator populations need to be controlled until vegetation starts growing back.
In the longer term, unburnt refuges would be crucial for the recovery of surviving wildlife, Clarke said. With climate change driving larger, more frequent and severe fires in this region, species that depend on mature habitats that only develop decades after a fire has passed are particularly vulnerable, he added.
The national parks are also “isolated islands of native vegetation in a sea of land cleared for agriculture,” Clarke said, which makes it harder for plants and animals from nearby unburnt areas to “recolonize” the affected areas.
White said several years of above-average annual rainfall can help the plants recover, ultimately helping the animals bounce back.
A spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) told Mongabay by email that its teams are assessing wildlife where it is safe to do so. DEECA is also applying “the best available science and modelling to better predict threatened species at risk from future fire” and to identify actions that can reduce the risks, the spokesperson said.
White said mitigating large fires is going to be a “seriously difficult task as climate change intensifies.”
“Predictions of increased frequency, and scale of wildfires is exactly what are seen now in areas like the Grampians,” he added. “We have to accept that fires are going to be more frequent if we do nothing to avoid climate change intensifying.”
Banner image of a brush-tailed rock wallaby by Donald Hobern via Wikimedia Commons (CCBY2.0).
