The impact on our wildlife and ecosystems from the current bushfires is going to be catastrophic. It will be some time yet before the full extent emerges, but it will undoubtedly forever change the fragile ecology of our country.

Professor Andrew Beattie from Macquarie University near Sydney told AFP he believes the death toll of animals nationwide could be in the billions, “if you think of mammals, and birds, and reptiles, amphibians and say the larger insects such as butterflies”.
“We can be pretty sure that in large parts of these very expansive fires, most of the wildlife will be dead,” the emeritus professor from the department of biological sciences said.
“The flora and fauna will be gone, and that includes the smaller animals which form the food chain for the bigger ones, which people often don’t think about.”
[…] Asked if there was hope for the repopulation of animals in the worst-hit areas, Beattie said it depends on factors including rainfall, climate and logging, and it could take up to 40 years for habitats to return to normal.

phys.org