Every time the temperature gets over about 30 for a few days – like this Saturday, Sunday and Monday – they get hundreds of calls from people reporting heat-stressed, injured or dead wildlife. “Most animals can handle a day,” Ms Dazey says. “But when it starts to turn into two or three days in a row, they struggle to cope. Especially young ones who have never seen heat before, they don’t know what it is, they don’t know how to prepare for it.” Prolonged or extreme heat affects different animals in different ways. Larger animals like kangaroos and koalas will become both confused – a symptom of dehydration – and desperate for water. This leads them to behave unusually, wandering into back yards in search of a drink. Ms Dazey has received calls about a koala sitting on the end of a jetty and a kangaroo swimming in a backyard pool.

Many end up lured towards dogs bowls – which can often end up in a fight with the family pet. Others, confused by the heat, wander into areas animals normally avoid, like busy highways. Every year this leads to large numbers of injured and dead animals. Young animals, like baby possums, grip the back of their parents’ fur. But as the heat wears them out, they can lose their grip and drop out of trees. A heat-stressed Canberra magpie tries to catch a drink from a dripping tap. Credit:Karleen Minney The worst-hit animals are flying foxes, Ms Dazey says. When temperatures reach about 42 degrees, they start dying off en masse. A heatwave last November wiped out a third of the nation’s spectacled flying foxes.

Higher temperatures will often cause flying foxes to drop their babies. Wildlife Victoria places carers at every colony site to try to catch them and bring them to a vet. But as the climate crisis increases the number of hot days and heatwaves we see each summer, things are only getting worse. How to help animals on hot days If you spot an animal in distress, the best thing to do is don gloves, pick up the poor creature and put it in a box inside. The animal can be given water and kept in a laundry or similar space until the day cools down. If an animal seems in real trouble, take it to a vet, many of whom will accept them free-of-charge.