PRESS RELEASE: ANIMAL RESCUERS POURING SUPPORT INTO FIREZONES AS HEAT INCREASES
• ARC Wildlife Emergency Support Team has spent over $3m on supporting Wildife rescuers in recovery since 2019
• Months of work preparing shelters for the Summer heat waves
• Rescue shelters directly clearing, prepping and designing defences ready for the invitable.
Australia December 01, Summer hit. 42 degrees and windy. Birds are falling out of the sky and Wildlife are being cooked alive in the heat.
The Black Summer bushfires of 2019-2020 changed the way Australians thought about our bushland and the animals that inhabit it. Forever.
Birdsong and the rustle of marsupials gave way to an eerie, smoky silence; boundless green tree canopies turned to a landscape of charred and stunted trees and the complete decimation of undergrowth that had supported billions of mammals, reptiles, birds and frogs for centuries.
The fires burnt an estimated 18.6 million (18,600,000) hectares, and killed 3 Billion (3,000,000,000) animals. The whole world watched on as Australia burned. We were helpless in the face of an enormous fire front that burned for six long months.
Busy at the frontline from QLD to Kangaroo Island, South Coast to Gippsland
The ARC has been at the frontline supporting rescuers ever since the last fires, and since then has been busy with ongoing rescue support but also panning a way ahead, preparing for the worst, hoping for the best.
“For our wildlife to survive the fires that will inevitably arrive with each and every fire season, the way we respond to disasters of this scale and ferocity has to improve” Said Dr Alli Cairns, national emergency coordinator for ARC.. “We were right there on the ground during last summer’s fires, distributing food and medical supplies to key hot spots, coordinating volunteers to assist in all aspects of rescue and recovery of both wildlife and domestic animals, and rebuilding wildlife sanctuaries and the homes of those for whom the sanctuary IS their home”
ARC’s plan focuses on preparing sanctuaries and our hubs for bushfire season, building critical infrastructure for emergency response, retaining and building necessary skills and encouraging and supporting collaboration across groups who care about our wildlife.
Funded only by public donations and the help of sponsors such as WIRES, ARC continues to roll out support. WIRES made a significant grant to this program which is one of many nationally in progress.
ARC has spent the last 4 months restocking our hubs and rescue groups with first aid supplies necessary for responding to wildlife emergencies, while keeping emergency supplies on hand should we experience logistical difficulties getting to fire zones as we did earlier in the year.
Taking the costs and work to help rescuers prepare/
For many rescue groups, the cost of preparing for fire and for the rescue of wildlife is away and above what they can ever hope to afford. ARC has bought essential equipment for preparedness, protection, response and treatment in the event of a wildlife emergency, which can be loaned out to individual rescuers or groups in times of need. These are available across all of our hubs nationwide.
These items include specialist portable fire units, high lumen long-throw torches and thermal imaging cameras for spotting injured animals, back up generators and water pumps for firefighting and ensuring sanctuaries can continue to do their valuable work…and the list goes on.
On the ground at shelters
“We have also trialled our bushfire preparedness program in the ACT and surrounding areas, working with animal sanctuaries, the RFS, bushfire and vegetation experts and rescue groups to assess a sanctuary’s fire risk, and to help them to implement survival and protection plans and strategies. Our teams have been busy on the ground preparing these properties for the bushfire season – because without ensuring their safety first and foremost, then our wildlife will lose safe places for treatment and recovery.”
We have conducted initial assessments nationally, which has enabled us to identify potentially suitable sites that may have some capacity to act as triage centres and evacuation points. We are hoping to roll this program out to other areas in 2021.
ARC has also begun to focus on upskilling experienced carers in the skills needed for search and rescue of wildlife by offering scholarships for tranquiliser certification on a trial basis. We will be looking to expend this and other opportunities in the near future.
You can read more about ARC at www.arcsupport.org.au by volunteering at your local ARC hub.
We are so proud of the team we have, the people and organisations we work with and all of you, who help to support us. But there is so much to be done, and we have a long summer ahead before we can rest and take stock of how we can do things better, the next time around.
For further information
– Dr Alli Cairns – Project Leader Fire and Emergency – 0447 695 182 – [email protected]
– Sharon Rigby – Media & Comms – [email protected]
The Animal Rescue Cooperative (ARC) is a national volunteer group that rescues and supports rescuers nationwide. During the Summer Bushfires, ARC donors spent over $3m to supply food, rescue equipment, water and emergency supplies to Animal Rescuers everywhere. This equated to 94% of all its donations. The national organisation is a peak body for rescuers across
Programs from the ARC team include
• Disaster response/Bushfire national response
• Food donation and redistribution across Australia for Rescuers
• Covid 19 /Corona Companion Animal Response
• National logistics for PetBarn foundation food redistribution
• National Food response for WIRES Bushfire relief programs
• Craft Guild international rescue program (250000 volunteer members)
• Redistribution programs for many major health and welfare donors
• Hundreds of individual rescues, hands on rebuilds and programs of work.
The ARC team came together from groups of specialist Animal Rescuers, professionals, volunteers and wildlife workers, all with the same goals. To build a national capacity for supporting the broad rescue ecosystem. The ARC work in conjunction with peak bodies, major rescue organisations, thousands of individual rescuers and the care sector to respond with scale and help animals in need.
