2019-20 Cudlee Creek Bushfire

Adelaide Hills, South Australia

The Black Summer bushfires were a national disaster. We’d been monitoring the devastation occurring interstate and were feeling helpless and distressed seeing the news footage and hearing stories from the fireground. The catastrophic when a fire started in the Adelaide HillsWhen the Cudlee Creek bushfire hit our home territory, AKR was inundated with calls from Adelaide Hills residents and emergency services needing help for koalas and other wildlife as well as livestock with burns and other issues. Due to a lack of other resources it was necessary for AKR to quickly establish and self-fund a temporary Emergency Wildlife Bushfire Triage Facility at Paradise Primary School and source volunteer veterinarians and vet nurses to treat the incoming rescues. Other volunteers were needed for a range of roles including browse (leaf) collection, animal husbandry and handling, volunteer care and more. Volunteers worked around the clock to ensure that wildlife always had veterinary care and experienced wildlife rehabilitators attending to them at all times.

AKR rescued and treated more than 200 koalas in the first two weeks and up to 120 koalas at any one time. In all more than 300 koalas and other animals were rescued and treated by AKR. Sadly many required euthanasia on animal welfare grounds but we also saved many others. We recruited a team of more than 80 veterinarians and vet nurses and managed more than 1000 volunteers.

The support from the South Australian community was extraordinary. Everyday people signed up to do anything they could to help from picking up supplies, donating needed goods, collecting and taking home laundry to wash and cooking meals for our hard-working volunteers.

What AKR achieved in establishing and operating what eventually became a field hospital was extraordinary. It took the Australian Army and government funding to deal with the Kangaroo Island bushfire crisis. AKR was saving SA’s wildlife long before any kind of other organised recovery effort arrived and AKR remained out there recovering bushfire victims long after other parties and authorities left the Adelaide Hills.

AKR received praise and support for its efforts from local, State and Federal governments and non-government organisations as well as unprecedented international media attention and public support.

Fortunately the generous donations from members of public and private corporations well exceeded State Government financial support. AKR received none of the Federal Government’s millions in bushfire relief despite the scale of AKR’s bushfire effort in the Adelaide Hills.

AKR wishes to thank the amazing volunteers who helped save SA’s wildlife and especially those who continue to volunteer with AKR to this day.