Nearly 3 billion Animals affected due to Australia bushfires: Study
Sydney: Nearly three billion animals were killed or displaced by Australia's unprecedented 2019-20 wildfires in "one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history", according to a report released Tuesday.
The study by scientists from several Australian universities said the wildlife hit included 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds, and 51 million frogs.
While the report did not say how many animals died because of the fires, the prospects for those that escaped the flames "were probably not great" due to a lack of food, shelter, and protection from predators, said Chris Dickman, one of its authors.
The fires ravaged more than 115,000 square kilometers (44,000 square miles) of drought-stricken bushland and forest across Australia in late 2019 and early 2020, killing more than 30 people and destroying thousands of homes.
It was the broadest and most prolonged bushfire season in modern Australian history, with scientists attributing the severity of the crisis to the impacts of climate change.
An earlier study in January estimated the fires had killed a billion animals in the hardest-hit eastern states of New South Wales and Victoria. But the survey released Tuesday was the first to cover fire zones across the continent, said lead scientist Lily van Eeden of the University of Sydney.
Results from the survey were still being processed, with a final report due to be released late next month, but the authors said the number of three billion animals affected was unlikely to change.
"The interim findings are shocking," said Dermot O'Gorman, CEO of the Australian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature, which commissioned the report.
"It's hard to think of another event anywhere in the world in living memory that has killed or displaced that many animals," he said.
"This ranks as one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history."
The plight of Australia's popular koalas during the fires garnered international media attention, with thousands of the tree-dwelling marsupials believed to have perished.
But a government report early this year cited 100 other threatened native plant and animal species that had lost more than half their habitat to the blazes, raising the prospect of far greater losses.
Scientists say global warming is lengthening Australia's summers and making them increasingly dangerous, with shorter winters making it more difficult to carry out bushfire prevention work.
The report released Tuesday was drawn up by scientists from the University of Sydney, University of New South Wales, University of Newcastle, Charles Sturt University, and conservation group BirdLife Australia.
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Another North Goa nightclub sealed; Kejriwal says corruption led to fire tragedy
Panaji (PTI): As part of a crackdown against tourist establishments violating laws and safety norms in the aftermath of the Arpora fire tragedy, Goa authorities on Saturday sealed a renowned club at Vagator and revoked the fire department NOC of another club.
Cafe CO2 Goa, located on a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea at Vagator beach in North Goa, was sealed. The move came two days after Goya Club, also in Vagator, was shut down for alleged violations of rules.
Elsewhere, campaigning for local body polls, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal said the fire incident at Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub at Arpora, which claimed 25 lives on December 6, happened because the BJP government in the state was corrupt.
An inspection of Cafe CO2 Goa by a state government-appointed team revealed that the establishment, with a seating capacity of 250, did not possess a no-objection certificate (NOC) of the Fire and Emergency Services Department. The club, which sits atop Ozrant Cliff, also did not have structural stability, the team found.
The Fire and Emergency Services on Saturday also revoked the NOC issued to Diaz Pool Club and Bar at Anjuna as the fire extinguishers installed in the establishment were found to be inadequate, said divisional fire officer Shripad Gawas.
A notice was issued to Nitin Wadhwa, the partner of the club, he said in the order.
Campaigning at Chimbel village near Panaji in support of his party's Zilla Panchayat election candidate, Aam Aadmi Party leader Kejriwal said the nightclub fire at Arpora happened because of the "corruption of the Pramod Sawant-led state government."
"Why this fire incident happened? I read in the newspapers that the nightclub had no occupancy certificate, no building licence, no excise licence, no construction licence or trade licence. The entire club was illegal but still it was going on," he said.
"How could it go on? Couldn't Pramod Sawant or anyone else see it? I was told that hafta (bribe) was being paid," the former Delhi chief minister said.
A person can not work without bribing officials in the coastal state, Kejriwal said, alleging that officers, MLAs and even ministers are accepting bribes.
