Vets get ready for bushfire season in WA

Western Australia experienced some devastating bushfires at the beginning of the year, and NSW is already experiencing an early season; it’s a reminder that we all need to be prepared for a bushfire. While it’s important to have a plan for our family and pets, who looks after wildlife in a fire?  

Although most native wild either escape or perish during a fire, some survive. We’ve seen kangaroos, koalas, possums, echidnas and reptiles come out of a bushfire, but they are often burnt, starving or suffering from smoke inhalation and need urgent and specialised veterinary treatment. 

IFAW recently hosted a workshop with Dr Anne Fowler at the WA AVA veterinary conference in Fremantle on how to treat burned wildlife (a follow-up to the first workshop two years ago). Over 70 people attended - a mix of vets, vet nurses and wildlife rescuers which is great as disaster response is a collective effort. There were also some other attendees who noticeably didn’t take any notes (six kangaroo joeys and a baby orphaned bandicoot who had to be hand-fed by wildlife rescuers during the breaks). 

Anne, who has worked with wildlife in many fires, including Black Saturday, showed people how to assess and treat different animals– wildlife, pets and livestock. She also explained how veterinary treatment is often only part of the mix – in a disaster, you are part of a team and need to know how emergency response crews operate, your role on a fire-ground – and most importantly how to look after yourself to avoid burn out and stress.  

Everyone learnt how to apply a perfect bandage, a simple yet essential skill that can mean life or death to an injured animal, the human participants simply used each other as guinea pigs (or kangaroos). 

The training left me hopeful that now we have 140 more people in WA who are now trained in how to treat burnt animals. Hopefully, they won’t need to but, if it comes to it, they will be prepared.