Koalas are still being nursed back to health a year after Australia’s worst bushfires.
A veterinary site set up on Kangaroo Island after the month-long blaze still has 22 in its care.
But some 250 of the 650 marsupials rescued from the flames have since been released back into the wild.
Brit Georgie Dolphin, of Humane Society International, said: “That is actually a pretty remarkable success rate, given the dreadful injuries the animals suffered from the fire.”
But the charity warned some animal populations will never recover – and the fires could easily happen on the same scale again.
At the start of 2020, apocalyptic blazes dubbed Black Summer killed 26 people and billions of animals, destroying 3,000 homes and many wildlife habitats in the process.
More than half of famed Kangaroo Island, south-west of Adelaide, was flattened.
Charity spokesman Evan Quartermain said: “We may have lost species that were yet to even be described.
“We were still trying to properly understand these incredibly complex ecosystems and many researchers have had their life’s work disappear in front of their eyes.”
Almost 50 threatened animal and plant species are believed to have had at least 80 per cent of their habitat affected by bushfires, he said.
A further 65 species had more than half their range in the fire zone.
“This places massive pressure on top of already declining populations and has pushed iconic species like the koala and platypus closer to extinction,” Mr Quartermain continued.
“We still don’t know all the impacts, even 12 months on from the bushfires. However, we know that billions of animals died, and some populations will never recover.”
One of those feared extinct is the Kangaroo Island assassin spider, which was only found in the island’s Western River Wilderness Protection Area.
The area was severely burned and the spider has not been seen since.
There are also grave concerns for dunnarts, glossy black cockatoos and pygmy possums that are specific to Kangaroo Island.
Though they have been spotted since the fires, it is not known if their habitats will be able to sufficiently regenerate to sustain their future in the wild.
But Mr Quartermain said: “Scientists are finding some promising signs of life on Kangaroo Island, including a pygmy possum thought to have been wiped out.
“We definitely could see the same level of fires again – though due to the amount that burned over Black Summer, a repeat of 2019-20 is not expected this year.
“Increasingly dry summers make the bushfire risk even greater than before, and it won’t be long until many fuel loads are restored.
“In order to plan for this inevitability, HSI has invested in staff training, emergency field stations and significant wildlife carer support.
“These investments will also assist with other disasters, such as drought and flood.”
