The Australian bushfires are just insane, but you don’t need me to tell you that. Smoke from the blazes are covering massive parts of the country that have managed to avoid the flames, and the sheer scale of the disaster means that the smoke has blown as far as South America. There’s not much good news going around, but Operation Rock Wallaby is the wholesome story I’m desperately clinging to.
We know that the amount of animals killed in the fires is estimated to be over a billion at this point, but some animals have managed to survive. Those that have are faced with a burned landscape and not a lot of anything left, and it’s damn hard to find food and water when everything has been flattened by the flames.
Operation Rock Wallaby is the new mission to drop thousands of kilos of carrots and sweet potatoes over burned areas for the remaining animals to chow down on. Specifically they’re targeting the brush-tailed rock wallabies, but I don’t think too many animals would pass up a chance at a meal.
So far the drops have happened in Kangaroo Valley, the Capertee and Wolgan valleys, the Yengo, Jenolan, Oxley Wild Rivers and Curracubundi national parks. Matt Kean, the NSW Minister for Energy & Environment, has said this is one of the most widespread drops ever to go ahead.
It’s a rough time, and the news just gets harder and harder to watch. The thought of starving wallabies being saved by food falling out of the sky is one of the first things to bring a smile to my face in a while, and I’m absolutely going to be crying over it for the next week.
Always be in the loop with our snackable podcast breaking the biggest story of the day. Subscribe to It’s Been A Big Day For… on your favourite podcast app.