'Silent death': Australia's bushfires push countless species to extinction |

"“It feels like we have hit a turning point that we predicted was coming as a consequence of climate change,” Legge said. “We are now in uncharted territory.”

Bushfires don’t just burn animals to death but create starvation events. Birds lose their breeding trees and the fruits and invertebrates they feed on. Ground-dwelling mammals that do survive emerge to find an open landscape with nowhere to hide, which one ecologist said became a “hunting arena” for feral cats and foxes.

“If this is what we are seeing now are the beginnings of changes due to climate change, then what are we looking at 2C or 4C? I don’t think we can get our heads around what that could be like. This is not the new normal but it’s a transition to something we have not experienced before."

newstory by Graham Readfearn​

'Silent death': Australia's bushfires push countless species to extinction | Environment | The Guardian