Aussie couple's 'wonderful' encounter amid devastation in national park: 'There was nothing'
Peter Kervarec was shocked to encounter two curious echidnas after venturing into the recently reopened Grampians National Park on Friday.
A photographer’s “wonderful” run-in with a resilient and iconic Aussie animal scouring for food in “barren” countryside has highlighted the catastrophic damage bushfires have already inflicted this summer.
On Friday, Peter Kervarec from Ballarat, and his partner decided to go for a drive through Victoria’s Grampians National Park just weeks after 76,000 hectares of the famous tourist attraction tragically went up in flames.
Driving on the recently reopened road between Dunkeld and Lake Bellfield, the local told Yahoo News Australia the extent of the devastation was immediately apparent.
“You look to the left and look to the right, and all the bush and everything is burned right to the horizon which is the top of the range in some areas. It’s pretty bad,” he recalled on Monday.
As the disheartened pair travelled further into the “bushfire blackened landscape”, they were stunned when an echidna suddenly appeared on the road about 100 metres ahead.
Curious echidna seen scouring for food in burnt bushland
After pulling over and jumping out of the car, the couple watched as the native animal crossed the road and foraged for something to eat in the charred ruins.
“I was down low trying to take photos of it and it just kept coming towards me,” Kervarec told Yahoo, explaining he “backed up” several times before kneeling on the ground. “It came right up to me and sniffed my knees, then stood in my shadow for probably one minute and walked off.”
As the echidna waddled away, the photographer said he was able to scan its feet and check it was not injured.
The couple also discovered the creature was not alone, with a second echidna seeking shelter in a large culvert with a stormwater pipe nearby. “It had buried itself down so only its spines were showing out of the ground and I thought to myself ‘this is probably how they survived the bushfire’,” Kervarec said.
Echidnas are known to burrow into the soil, or hide under vegetation and shelter in hollow logs and rock crevices during extreme weather. They are also surprisingly good swimmers.
Grampians National Park suffers 'massive loss'
The long-time local said it was apparent during his road trip that the Grampians National Park has suffered a “massive loss of animals and what they feed on”.
“Birds live on insects and spiders, and there was nothing. There’s hardly any insects, I didn’t see one spider, nothing. It’s just been totally sterilised,” he added, comparing the blaze to the 2019/2020 Black Summer Bushfires in NSW and Queensland, which had a catastrophic impact on wildlife, harming around 3 billion animals.
“There is no refuge anywhere for anything to hide in. All the hollows are burnt. All the logs lying on the ground, they’re all burnt. Everything’s gone,” Kervarec said.
According to wildlife rescue group WIRES, it could take decades for the park’s ecosystems to fully recover, making the bushfire “especially heartbreaking”.
The area serves as a rehabilitation release site for several native species including eastern grey kangaroos, bare nosed wombats, swamp wallabies and brush-tailed possums. Miraculously, a mob of brush-tailed rock wallabies thought to have perished in the fire were found alive and well earlier this month.
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Total fire bans in Victoria and South Australia during heatwave
Kervarec’s striking reminder of the reality our native creatures face comes as residents in Victoria and South Australia swelter through 40C temperatures — and are being told to remain on alert for “uncontrollable” bushfires.
Extreme fire danger was forecast on Monday for western and central Victoria and much of eastern South Australia, prompting total fire bans across high risk areas.
A total fire ban is in place for the Wimmera, Mallee, southwest, central and north central regions of Victoria, as well as eastern parts of South Australia including metropolitan Adelaide, Murraylands and Lower Eyre Peninsula. Southern Tasmania is also under total fire ban over hot, dry windy conditions.
The “burst of really hot and windy conditions” will be followed by a late gusty cool change sparking fire fears, Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Dean Narramore explained.
“If any fires do get going in these extreme areas today, they’re likely to be uncontrollable and uncontainable,” he said. “So dangerous fire conditions with dry lightning threat as well”.
Heatwave warnings are current for South Australia, Queensland, NSW, ACT, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
with AAP
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