1 Billion Animals Now Estimated Dead in Australia’s Wildfires: Experts

A kangaroo jumps in a field amidst smoke from a bushfire in Snowy Valley on the outskirts of Cooma on Jan. 4, 2020. And massive smoke rises from wildfires burning in East Gippsland, Victoria. SAEED KHAN/AFP via Getty Images; Dale Appleton/DELWP via AP

Experts have said that more than 1 billion animals may have died in Australian wildfires since September as authorities worked to crack down on the perpetrators.

University of Sydney professor Chris Dickman told the Huffington Post the figure in an update of his prior estimate of 480 million a week ago.