Archive for February 2009
How animals began dying before the Australian bush fires
The ancients believed firmly in omens, a belief which need not be interpreted in supernatural terms. It is often said that animals flee in advance of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. In Australia last week, it seems animals reacted as distinctly to the extraordinary heat that heralded the country’s awful fires. Reason no. 762 to take climate change seriously: a love of small, furry creatures. From the Sydney Morning Herald: The end of climate certainty | smh.com.au
When hundreds of small, grey-headed flying foxes began falling from the sky at Yarra Bend in suburban Melbourne, for some it heralded the awful events that would later unfold. It was Wednesday, January 28, one day into the ferocious heatwave that would wax and wane before returning with terrible intensity last weekend.
That first day, calls began pouring into Wildlife Victoria. As the bats were dying en masse in the city, ringtail possums were falling out of trees in the bush and distressed kangaroos, too weak to jump, were baulking at fences.
