ging back


Kangaroo Island is bouncing back to life following devastating wildfires earlier this year. Sarah Marshall visited before and after the fires and reports on its recovery


e travelweekly.co.uk


yes wider than saucers and gaze locked firmly on a milk bottle, a forlorn joey attempts to scale his playpen with the determination of a climber on Everest. In the past few months, more than 600 injured,


starved and orphaned koalas have passed through the doors of Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park, their hungry, high-pitched squeals interrupted only by the whirring blades of a helicopter returning from missions to find more marsupials requiring help. At the end of last year, wildfires ripped through


parts of Australia, exacerbated by high temperatures and months of drought, all set against the backdrop of climate change. In South Australia’s cherished wildlife idyll Kangaroo Island, a series of dry lightning strikes in late December and early January sparked devastation, and the koala became an enigmatic poster child for heartbreak and loss. “We’ve had a 35%-40% success rate,” says Dana Mitchell, co-owner of Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park,


the only body licensed to care for koalas on the island. “We were told to expect only 10%.” It’s a tiny glimmer of hope amid a complex recovery


effort, made all the more challenging now by the impact of the coronavirus crisis. At best, it’s estimated one-sixth of the island’s 60,000-strong koala population remains, and it’s Dana’s mission to relocate survivors to safe areas using £1.2 million of public donations generated by a GoFundMe campaign.


BEFORE AND AFTER Only days before the fires took hold, I’d been exploring Flinders Chase National Park on the western tip of the island – the area worst hit. I’d watched waves crash through the limestone window of Admirals Arch and had marvelled at the 500-million-year-old boulders of Remarkable Rocks. When I returned two months later, the scene


was very different. Stripped bare and exposed, Flinders was now a cascade of ebony stubble and


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DESTINATIONS KANGAROO ISLAND | AUSTRALASIA


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