She named the koala Lewis – Ellenborough Lewis was his full name, after her grandchild. For a week in November we around the world saw only glimpses of him on video – his paws sticking out of a soft blanket, his slow and gingerly eating of green leaves a caregiver fed to him, or the large burn marks on his little body. Then he passed, euthanized on Nov. 26 when those caring for him determined that the miracle of his rescue would not be enough to sustain his life. In substance and light, his soul surely lives on.

One week before on Nov. 19, spotting the disoriented koala trying to climb a tree in a fully blazing bushfire, a woman in Australia, Toni Doherty, had thrown off her shirt and ran into the fire. She picked up the koala, who had been burned terribly, and ran carrying him through the fires out of the bush. Then, as her husband, Peter, brought a blanket for the koala, Toni doused and dabbed him with water. He cried in pain, short bursts of wailing. Doherty said later that she had never heard that sound before.

The Dohertys were determined to save the koala. Quickly, they took him to the safety of their car and rushed him to the Koala Hospital of Port Macquerie. There, veterinary staff and other caregivers had been treating a large number of koalas who had sustained burns in the raging bushfires in New South Wales and other parts of Australia.

Lewis’ prognosis was very uncertain and as the days went on, turned grim. For seven days, those in the Koala Hospital treated Lewis with round-the-clock care and substantial pain relief. He had sustained burns to his hands, feet, arms, and the inside of his legs. Some koalas were recovering, but those treating Lewis determined that his burns were getting worse and likely would not get better. They decided to put the koala to sleep on Nov. 26.

A video of the rescue of Lewis drew attention all over the world, as millions viewed it. After first seeing the video, I watched it and others several more times immediately, and have in the days since. As I did that day, I sobbed. The koala’s cries as Doherty rescued him were very clear and piercing, and surely reflected intense pain from the burns and heat.

This video shows Toni Doherty rescuing the koala in the intense bushfire. She and her husband, Peter, then minister to him before taking him to the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie, New South Wales. As of today (Dec. 21, 2019), people have viewed this video more than 5.6 million times.

In the days since, these video images and the sound of Lewis have stayed with me, frequently. Even weeks afterward, I get choked up and start to take deep breaths as I think of Lewis, and am full of grief. It is the koala’s suffering in those moments that the images and sounds convey. I share responsibility. Animals die in the wild all the time. However, this is different, as with other species who are being injured, maimed, killed – in effect, disappeared – in significant ways by mankind’s denial and rapacious actions.

Lewis’ painful wailing is a cry to us. Lewis is among hundreds of koala who have burned to death in Australia. Some experts say as many as 1,000 koalas have perished in the bushfires, delivering a terrible blow to a species whose survival is already vulnerable in the extreme. Wildfires happen as part of natural processes, to be sure. Yet the bushfires that have been devastating huge swaths of forested land in Australia are becoming both more frequent and far worse – and climate change plays a significant role. These fires are harbingers of worse to come, if we do not act.

In the video is a core message to mankind about climate change and its threat. In his cries and his suffering, Lewis is speaking of what we are doing to the natural world and our imbalance with it. Toni Doherty embodied, in that moment of risking her life for the vulnerable creature, the feminine earth energy of lifegiving and sustenance.

We’re witnessing the fires, floods, melting ice, unprecedented storms, and the winds all getting far worse. However, mankind keeps tramping in our world without near enough regard. Our consumption, greed, and willful ignorance of earth’s signals – and the enabling of systems and behavior patterns that are literally killing off species and dangerously warming the planet – go on, for the most part. So much of the time, many of us go about business as usual.

Lewis has sounded the siren we aren’t responding to nearly enough. Like Lewis crying in a woodland ablaze and the hundreds who died in the bushfires, the koalas personify a natural world pushed to the brink and how man’s actions imperil many species and ultimately, life on Earth.

”Functionally Extinct”

Koalas are one of an increasing number of endangered species. While the numbers are hard to pin down exactly, the koalas – whose fossil records go back 30 million years – are undoubtedly in danger of disappearing from the planet. The Australia Koala Foundation (AKF) estimates that no more than 80,000 koalas remain, in a range that includes four states and one territory of Australia. Koalas are verging on becoming “functionally extinct,” as many news outlets reported this year. This means that the species, for various reasons, may be reaching the point that future viability is in question.

A koala in the wild

How does man bear a responsibility for what is happening to koalas, as they have become in “serious decline,” as the Australia Koala Foundation says. They are threatened by destruction of their habitat, as people clear more eucalyptus trees, which provide the leaves that the koalas eat. They’re increasingly vulnerable to bushfires, which climate change – and its drought and extreme heat – are exacerbating. Domestic dog attacks and road accidents are at fault at well. All in all, climate change is a systemic, massive threat, and the koalas represent one of the most defenseless creatures to it. The marsupials are one of 10 global species most vulnerable to climate change, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Climate change is the place where mankind’s imbalance with our planet is gigantic and truly threatening to life on the planet. Yet, the complex nature of the scientific data at times precludes grasping it entirely. Scientists issue conclusions in reports, share findings in conferences, and provide all types of graphic charts and graphs. They do the big, critical work of making what is at stake clear. Entities worldwide sound alarms, such as the United Nations warning in a recent dire report stating that humans are nearing a tipping point that would prompt catastrophic consequences worldwide – that we are literally “sleep walking” into this danger, as a prominent scientist said. Such news and analysis go in and out of the headlines, while many are not at all tuned in.

Still, one image, one strong example may well make more palpable the urgency of the climate threat than these activities – in effect, breaking through ignorance and denial as it breaks hearts. This is not to diminish the crucial research and work that the scientific community is performing. It simply recognizes how powerful our human connection and kinship is with the creatures and natural world.

The Price of Witnessing

Yet scientists who are witnessing major deterioration and alterations understand this emotional impact as much, if not better, than anyone. Scientists and others investigating the disastrous bleaching and deterioration of the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral-reef system, due to extreme marine heat in 2016 and 2017, have voiced deep grief and sadness. An emerging body of research has documented how many feel intense loss and grief due to the environmental degradation prompted by climate change, a phenomenon those studying it have termed “ecological grief.”

Would this be ecological grief as I watched the video of Lewis crying and a woman responding, bravely, to his cries and the sight of him struggling, and read of hundreds of koalas perishing? Yes, it is. This koala’s soul has surely passed on, alive, becoming part of the circle that lives, dies, and becomes new forms, in the words of the prayer I’ve said since childhood, “forever and ever.” Those taking care of Lewis made sure that his pain ended but the unsettling grief and questions remain.

Am I heeding Lewis’ cry about fires and the climate threat? Are we learning and changing after witnessing the sight of the ashes and the smoke, the water going beyond its bounds elsewhere, the ice melting? We do not need to be heroic. We need to act in many small ways daily, both individually and in concert with others, and understand the utter urgency since the threat is upon us. We need to keep organizing and voting out climate deniers – who are ensuring widespread death and destruction. We need to live in our bones as real stewards of the planet. We need to break down the systems and rebuild them as well as build onto what is already working. We need to learn from the best practices of societies and countries worldwide and from indigenous peoples, both those who came before and those who are here now.

This is something we owe to Lewis the koala and to the woman who risked her life to carry him out of the fire. Please watch the video, if you haven’t yet: What does this koala’s cry and death mean to you?

Follow-up: Protecting Koalas, Taking Climate Action

Find out about the koalas – and how to help save them – from the Australia Koala Foundation. The foundation provides a bounty of photos and videos, and incredible, in-depth information and resources on issues such as climate change and habitat conservation; how the protection of eucalypt trees, the koalas’ forests, helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and ways to support koalas from habitat restoration and urging protective legislation to adopting a koala (symbolically since they live in the bush). Also, follow the Koala Animal Hospital of Port Macquarie on Facebook or Instagram.

In the next post, Mindful Walker will provide (and ask all to share) ways that we can overcome the daunting nature of global climate change to work individually and collectively, each day, to solve the crisis and heal ourselves and our planet.