Bear, a five-year-old high-energy dog whose job is to find Koalas injured in Australia's bushfires, has rescued 100 of them in the areas affected located in New South Wales and Queensland.?
An Australian Koolie, Bear is part of Queensland's University of Sunshine Coast's (USC) 'Detection Dogs for Conservation' team. It has been working in collaboration with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and local wildlife groups with an aim to rescue koalas.?
Bear has been active since November last year and till now has found 100 sick or injured Koalas, Australia's national news agency Australian Associated Press said in a report according to PTI.?
"We've worked in areas post-fire with other dogs, and they were able to smell their target odours, so it didn't surprise me that Bear could do it," said team member Romane Cristescu.?
"The catastrophic landscape is really hard for us, but for Bear it's an opportunity for him to be out and play and do what he likes doing," Romane added.?
"We're still finding animals that are struggling to find food. They're on the edge of starvation. If we find them, wildlife carers can plump them up. Their goal is to release them when and where they have a better chance of having food available to them. Some places have burnt so much for such a wide area, some species may take decades to recover."?
IFAW wildlife campaigner Josey Sharrad was of the opinion that Bear brought the team hope when the rampaging bushfires caused massive damage between September 2019 to March 2020.?
"He found koalas despite all those harrowing conditions. That brought us hope," she said.?
"We don't want people to move on so quickly from the bushfire emergency. Every koala we can track, rescue and rehab counts to the future survival of species," she added.