I've covered most of the big fires in the United States, and California.
So I had seen a ton of really massive devastation.
But Australia, I was just like, Jeez, I don't even know where to start.
I came up with the idea of putting infrared cameras on drones to find wild animals,
As well as rescue people's pets.
For a natural disaster. I feel using drones is the most effective way at rescuing animals because of the fact
that. You can just cover such a large area.
You know, the amount of time that it would take dozens of people to cover even a quarter square mile.
It just enables us to save a lot more animals much faster.
And capture a lot of animals that wouldn't have normally been found.
Around September 2019, when I was in the Bahamas for Hurricane Dorian,
I was hearing about the Australian fires as they kept getting worse and worse and then seeing the footage.
Then I knew that I would be heading to Australia next and
I wasn't aware I would be there for I was like seven or eight months.
I've covered most of the big fires in United States, in California, so I had seen a ton of really massive
devastation. But Australia, I was just like, Jeez, I don't even know where to start.
There's dozens and dozens of fires up and down this coastline for thousands of miles.
I've seen estimates from World Wildlife Fund that billions of animals died.
One of the first areas I ended up going to was Kangaroo Island,
Which is just a biological hotspot of so many animals.
They've got echidnas all over the place.
They've got different types of possums, koalas,
And they got hit really hard with these fires and lost a significant amount of the island.
So it was imperative that we try to rescue these animals as quick as possible.
And getting them quickly to get the veterinary care that they needed.
I was able to start doing work relatively soon.
You know, it was sad because you could see where the fires had happened.
And I was finding,
you know, countless animals that were already burned up or you could see them lined up against like a barbed wire fence.
Where they were trying to escape the fire and obviously I got caught by the fire.
Unfortunately for koalas, because fires are a natural part of the ecosystem in Australia,
Their instinct was just to climb up higher in the tree.
Their method of escaping doesn't really work nowadays.
The fires are, burned much hotter than they used to with climate change,
Also because of the fact that the landscape has been greatly altered.
.. a fire can just go through and wipe out the entire tree farms in a matter of
minutes compared to an ancient forest where it would just burn along the forest floor and take out a few trees here and there.
But now the fires are going up into the completely into the canopy,
so the koalas go up into the top canopy of a tree.
And they just get cooked like a marshmallow right away.
It was not only rescuing the animals that have been hurt, but also it was a matter of finding,
left-over animals because we were finding a lot of koalas, had gotten displaced, were able to get away from the
fire. And be in the middle of this giant sea of burnt trees where you're just like this poor little koala is going to starve.
A lot of what later on was happening was the drone was great to find these
koalas. That were lost in the burnt forest areas and then we would capture the koala, check it over,
make sure it was okay and then re-release it in an area where there was still habitat.
The koalas are one of the animals that the drone worked exceptionally well with because,
the koalas like to be at night, high up in the trees.
Me naively being from the United States, I didn't really realize how tough a koala would be
necessarily. And, but in order to have something that's that heavy set clinging onto a branch and
not falling every single day,
I mean, the arms on a koala are extremely tough.
When you go to get them out of the tree, they would fight like crazy and they got sharp teeth and claws
and these ones were definitely strong willed koalas that had the will to live.
And we were capturing them and putting them in a place where they were going to live.
A particular rescue that stands out was one of the baby female koalas that we saved.
I found her up in a tree at night, orphaned and yeah, in this particular case,
with this young female koala, it was a matter of rescuing her and,
transporting her to habitat that was unburnt habitat,
because she was in an area where there was not enough eucalyptus trees left for her to survive,
and she was in a burnt tree where there was nothing for her to eat.
We set a live trap at the base of the tree and this badly burned area and then in the morning,
Thankfully, she went down to grab some of the eucalyptus leaves that we put in the trap and then we were able to save her.
She was just kind of skinny and dehydrated, but I'm hopeful that she
ended up surviving, since we released her in a more suitable habitat.
Of course, you know almost, was tempted to keep the koala, but obviously wouldn't keep the koala.
But yeah, that was pretty heartwarming to rescue a little baby girl.
You know, sometimes they get pretty depressing doing the work, trying to find where the animals were left over,
because not only was the habitat destroyed, but you could also see that, there would be,
say, sugar cane plantations and stuff like that where,
even where there was possible habitat, there wouldn't be animals for miles and miles again.
So. you know just in the back of my mind going, geez, how how much habitat has been lost for these animals?
Being an aerial cinematographer, I understand the magnitude of how big these natural disasters
are getting now. So for me, it's you know most important, I think, is,
setting aside this habitat for animals and trying to protect what we have remaining and quit logging them,
and that's really what I would love to see happen.
Definitely using the drone to rescue animals changed what I was doing.
I was doing other work, like filming commercials or shooting for Hollywood shows and stuff like that,
And now doing work with rescuing animals and population studies of animals.
It's been a giant decrease in pay or whatever,
But it's more rewarding and it's the work that fills my heart and I'm passionate about.
You poor little creature.
Come on. There you go.
You poor thing. You've been through a lot, haven't you?
Have a seat with you. I'll give you some company.