Devastating video of the fallout from Australia’s ongoing bush fires shows helpless sheep wandering with blackened coats among the charred carcasses of other animals who succumbed to the smoke and flames.
The footage, captured by local resident Micah Lovegrove, 19, on Jan. 4, shows the handful of remaining sheep meandering around fire-ravaged farmland in Kangaroo Island, off the mainland state of South Australia.
The clip includes a close-up of one of the animals, showing that it had been badly burned.
Other lifeless animals lay on their sides on the parched farmland.
Lovegrove was the same teen who — along with his cousin — scooped some native koalas into their vehicle to save them from the fires.
A few days earlier and more than 900 miles away in the rural Victoria town of Corryong, a hero border collie named Patsy saved a flock of sheep as a wall of fire destroyed local farmland, Metro UK reported.
Patsy, 6, rounded up the sheep with a farmer as the flames encroached on the rural town. She herded them into a safe enclosure as her owner fought the fire in a tractor with a tank of water, according to the report. Almost all of the animals were saved.
In one photo posted to Instagram by Cath Hill — the sister of Patsy’s owner — the hero dog can be seen sitting on the scorched farmland, with smoke billowing in the distance.
“This is Patsy just after she and her human brought the sheep to safety on the morning of New Year’s Eve,” the post said. “Cool as a cucumber, Patsy waited with him until the fire got close enough to fight with a tractor and water pump.”
Hill congratulated the pooch on a job well done in a video posted to Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7DrRYFHHG6/
“Hey Patsy, can you hear those sheep?” Hill said in the heartwarming clip. “That’s all your work, well done. You little champion, good girl.”
The bush fires, which are visible from space, have killed 25 people and nearly a half-billion animals, wiping out an entire species of marsupials and sparking a global animal pouch-knitting frenzy.
“Everyone is just trying to get water and feed to their animals, shoot the ones that can’t be saved, get temporary fences up to keep stock secure, and put out all the logs and stumps still burning,” Hill told Metro of the devastating conditions in her town. “And there’s people who have nothing left but the clothes on their backs.”
Source: Read Full Article