Bushfire chaos puts pressure on possums, with wildlife carers calling on the community to help

More than 50 critically endangered western ringtail possums are thought to have been displaced or killed as a fire blazed through the Dunsborough Marri Reserve at the weekend.

The possums, along with a plethora of other animals, were received by Geo Bay Wildlife Rescue, whose chair Jo Harrison-Ward said there had been an influx of wildlife coming from the area.

She said the group was working with authorities to release some of the animals back into the wild once their burns were treated.

“The message we’d really love to get out is for people all around the area to start putting out water on the ground for our ground-dwellers, bird baths for the birds, and water in the trees for our possums,” Ms Harrison-Ward said.

“Keep an eye out in your yard, because if a possum has burnt paws it’s not going to climb. They’re going to be on the grass, hiding underneath shrubs, and the sooner we can get them to the vet to be treated, the better off they will be.”

Wildlife carer Pernille Pullan of South West group FAWNA said she was aware of three possums which had to be treated by a local vet after the weekend’s fires, with one male displaced and a mother and her baby trapped in the blaze.

“She was too severely burnt, her paws, tail and eyes had damage from the heat, but luckily her baby had been protected in the pouch,” she said.

“It was very small, only around 90g, but still just big enough to go into care.”

FANWA president Suzanne Stapp said she was aware of almost 40 possums which were found dead after the blaze.

“If they don’t die from the burns, they die from the stress or from smoke inhalation,” she said.

“The firefighters can’t be in that area without a breathing apparatus, so what do you think happens to tiny possums?

“If there’s a bushfire, particularly one that fast and intense, there would be a high chance animals won’t have a chance to escape, and even those that do have nothing left to eat, because it’s a total wasteland now.”