Vegetables Drop From The Sky To Feed Fire-Affected Australian Wallabies

Officials are dropping vegetables via helicopter to feed Australian wildlife

Thousands of kilograms of vegetables, namely carrots and sweet potatoes, are being dropped over New South Wales to feed the wildlife affected by the devastating Australian bushfires.

Matt Kean, the minister for Energy and Environment for New South Wales, is calling it “Operation Rock Wallaby,” and shared a photo of a member of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service dropping buckets of carrots from a helicopter over the endangered Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby colonies below.

It’s heartbreaking to see the little wallabies searching for food in their now-destroyed habitat.

Thankfully, the creatures are managing to seek out the carrots being dropped from overhead.

“The provision of supplementary food is one of the key strategies we are deploying to promote the survival and recovery of endangered species like the Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby,” Kean said (via The Sydney Morning Herald), while adding that they’ll keep dropping food until “sufficient natural food resources and water [return].”

Millions of acres of land in Australia have burned since September, more than one billion animals are estimated to have died in the bushfires, and a University of Sydney professor estimates that 800 million animals may have died in New South Wales alone. This is even more concerning considering that the threat of extension looms large for many of Australia’s creatures.

Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) told The Sydney Morning Herald that they are urging Australia’s leaders to do something about climate change, as there are “deep concerns that these fires have triggered extinction events for a range of nationally threatened species.”

In the meantime, individuals, charities, and other organizations are stepping in to fill the gaps and do their part to help conserve Australia’s unique wildlife.

WIRES Wildlife Rescue has gone viral for a video showing a dozen wallaby joey’s that they rescued from the fires in the human-made “pouches” they’ve been resting in.

If you want to help those displaced by the Australian bush fires, the Red Cross and Salvation Army Australia are manning shelters in evacuation zones and a number of organizations, like Wires, are on the ground caring for affected wildlife in the area. CNN has compiled a list of places you can donate to now and send some relief to Australia’s people and animals.