‘We shouldn’t be surprised’: bushfires in Victoria push threatened species to the brink

Victoria’s environment department has deployed wildlife teams to assess affected animals but a full picture of the devastation has yet to emerge. Photograph: Wildlife Victoria

As tinderbox conditions continue to hamper wildlife assessment and rescue efforts, bushfires in Victoria have burned habitat crucial to bird and animal species, including eastern bristlebirds and dingoes.

Some plant species are feared extinct.

Prof Don Driscoll, a terrestrial ecologist at Deakin University, said he was particularly concerned for the state’s population of endangered eastern bristlebirds – shy songbirds with cinnamon-brown feathers – after fires near Mallacoota burned about 60% of their habitat at Howe Flat.