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NEW YORK TIMES: There's No Place Like Kangaroo Island. Can It Survive Australia's Fires?
christina simons
Feb 5, 2020
Summary
There’s No Place Like Kangaroo Island. Can It Survive Australia’s Fires?
It was a wildlife haven, a tourist magnet and an agricultural center — before half of it burned.There’s No Place Like Kangaroo Island. Can It Survive Australia’s Fires?
It was a wildlife haven, a tourist magnet and an agricultural center — before half of it burned.Trigger warning : Some images of injured or deceased animals may be distressing to some viewers
KANGAROO ISLAND, Australia — Kangaroo Island is Australia in miniature.
It is a wildlife haven, with its own varieties of kangaroos, echidnas (a spiny anteater) and cockatoos, as well as a koala population seen as insurance should disaster strike the species on the mainland. It is a tourism magnet, with luxury cliff-top lodges and beaches studded with sea lions. It is a farming hub, producing veal, wool, grain and honey for purveyors at home and beyond.
Now, Kangaroo Island is unrecognizable.
Wildfires that burned for weeks consumed half of the island — more than 800 square miles. Two people were killed, dozens of homes were destroyed, and wilderness parks were turned to cinders, littering the landscape with animal corpses. In a bush land once teeming with the activity of insects, birds, reptiles and mammals, there is only silence, and the scent of rot.
Story By Jamie Tarabay
There’s No Place Like Kangaroo Island. Can It Survive Australia’s Fires? (Published 2020)It was a wildlife haven, a tourist magnet and an agricultural center — before half of it burned.
Nytimes.com
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