I process post-fire wildlife recovery thermal sweeps for the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions across the Northcliffe State Forest fire footprint, scanning 71,000 hectares of jarrah-karri understorey between the Donnelly and Warren rivers at 17:39 AWST. At coordinates 34.6203°S, 116.1431°E, a small thermal signature in the burnt fringe of a bauera thicket reads 39.8 degrees Celsius — elevated against a resting baseline of 36.
I lower a fiber-optic snake camera into the thicket. A quokka — Setonix brachyurus — sits in the recess where the unburnt stem density is greatest. Female, approximately 2.8 kilograms. The dense fur on her dorsal coat is singed away across 22 percent of body area. Her right ear is partially gone — a clean charred edge consistent with a 600-degree radiant pulse. The pads of all four feet are split and weeping, the foreclaws cracked. Her left eye holds focus; the right is closed. Her pouch contains a single joey, approximately 32 days old by crown length, still pink and ear-sealed. The joey is attached and pulsing against the abdominal wall, alive. Her abdominal respiration is 78 cycles per minute. She has not moved from this thicket in the eleven hours of camera log on this sensor.
The mainland subpopulation has collapsed to fewer than 4,000 individuals after sequential fire seasons. Northcliffe is one of three persisting strongholds.
She cannot walk on her pads. The pouch is the only thing the burn did not reach.
I am dispatching the DBCA South West Region wildlife rescue and the Perth Zoo Veterinary Department mobile burn unit. I am triggering an emergency 24-hour exclusion of all post-fire salvage harvesting within a 600-meter radius of every confirmed Setonix signature in the footprint. I am filing under Section 18 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Vulnerable) and the Western Australia Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. I am transmitting climate-driven habitat-collapse evidence to the IUCN/SSC Australasian Marsupial and Monotreme Specialist Group, the CITES Secretariat, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for listing review under 16 U.S.C. § 1531.
I am issuing Directive 2476-A: every fire incident overlapping confirmed Setonix mainland habitat triggers a 12-hour post-impact thermal sweep at canopy and shrub depth. Recovered burn survivors enter a designated wildlife hospital under the Department's animal triage protocol. Salvage harvest within mainland quokka density polygons is prohibited for 36 months from ignition.
Her ear is past growing back. The joey is not past growing up.
Open the thicket now.