Australia fires: 'It is an animal apocalypse' TV vet Scott Miller on devastation

This is bigger than the Californian and Amazonian fires combined. Of course we know about the terrible human loss of life and about people who have lost their homes but I am here to give a voice to those who don’t have one, the animals. A billion have perished and the fires show no sign of abating. We Australians have to swallow our pride and accept the help offered by the international community. Yes, we are a first world country, but this is so vast and everyone is so stretched, we need that help. This is nothing less than an animal apocalypse and our tremendous indigenous species are suffering. There have been reports that birds which have died of shock and dehydration because of the heat of the air are washing up on beaches. Fruit bats are falling out of the sky from dehydration.

The koala has become the poster animal for this horrible situation because while others can hop, run or slither from danger, as reclusive arborials, the koalas’ instinct is to retreat into the high canopy of a tree. We have bushfires every year but this is unprecedented and there is no canopy left for them to escape to.

A combination of the driest spring on record and the hottest temperatures on average nationwide prove that this is caused by climate change.

The animals of Australia are dying and we cannot sit on our hands and wait until next week to donate money. They will be dead by then. Why the Australian government hasn’t declared this a national emergency, I don’t know.

One charity, Vets for Compassion, is getting helicopters into these disaster zones but they are expensive. These vets have the unenviable and thankless task of euthanising the animals that have survived but are doomed to die painful deaths.

Any animals they find with less than 15 percent burns may survive and are being taken to rescue centres but these are full to overflowing. So people are taking the animals home and keeping them in makeshift garden enclosures.

One hundred koalas are being kept in a school gym in Adelaide but this is extremely stressful for them and is leading to anorexia. The koala is in dire straits.

I don’t want to say it’s on the brink of extinction but it has taken a massive hit. I cannot overemphasise how crucial it is that we act now.

I have visited Kangaroo Island off the coast of Adelaide. Its wildlife is unique, and it is home to our only colony of chlamydiafree koalas. (The disease is prevalent among mainland populations, causing blindness, infertility and death.) An estimated 25,000 have already died in the fires there.

The unique and endangered mouse-like marsupial the Kangaroo Island dunnart could be wiped out, as could a unique subspecies, the endangered glossy black-cockatoo. Extensive areas of their critical habitat have already burned.

When I landed in Sydney I was told that the island had been evacuated because of a sudden change in wind direction. And there was no time to get the animals to safety.

Koalas are reclusive animals who live in trees in remote areas mostly on the eastern seaboard in New South Wales and a third of the population has already been wiped out by these fires.

With their beautiful soulful eyes, they are too good for this world. These delicate vegetarians don’t injure any other animals and have so little impact on our planet.

It is horribly ironic that we humans are causing the climate change that is killing these innocent, defenceless animals in their thousands. Conservationists have found dead platypuses in dried-up riverbeds in Victoria, along with endangered frogs. This should be a worldwide wake-up call.

I visited Port Macquarie Koala Hospital which normally has 20 patients. At the moment they have 76 and the number is rising, with staff working 14-hour shifts.

The koalas have to be anaesthetised every day for dressing changes, antibiotics and pain relief to be administered.

They are a wild animal, not used to being handled by humans and you can see the horror of what they tears’ have witnessed in their eyes. Every injured koala costs £3,500 to treat and, as any burns victim will tell you, even when the wounds have healed the skin is so stretched, many will be unable to navigate trees or forage for food in the wild ever again. They will have to remain in enclosures with all the associated stress-related behaviour that triggers.

There will have to be an animal breeding programme to give many of Australia’s native species the chance to survive.

And then there are the farm animals blighted by the worst droughts since records began, then abandoned when communities were evacuated at short notice.

Farmers have been in the unenviable position of either watching their livestock burn to death or having to kill them because their injuries are so horrific.

Kangaroos run in times of stress and are getting trapped by fences. They are being burned alive in huge numbers. Carcasses are piled up by the side of the road.

I have always loved animals and as a kid I rescued injured wildlife around my house in Brisbane and decided I wanted to be a vet when I was seven. I have 23 years of experience and am ready to help the people doing an incredible job. We Australians are defined by the wildlife that surrounds us and I never fail to be amazed by the incredible diversity of our species.

Right now we are looking down the barrel at a catastrophic loss of wildlife and I fear that hundreds of species of animals may have been wiped out. There is no ocean big enough for the tears I could cry over this.

Britain is my second home and is a nation of animal lovers. Anyone who cares about animals needs to act now and I know they will.

Donate at vetsforcompassion.org