As the Australian bushfires continue to burn, a shocking piece of information appeared: since September, over 500 million animals have died because of the flames. Especially hard-hit was the koala population, with many of these animals dying in the calamity.

However, the situation in Australia showed us that people are willing to step up and be the everyday heroes that we need. 19-year-old Micah and 18-year-old Caleb are two such heroes and they’re being praised all over the net. These two cousins drove around Kangaroo Island, rescuing koalas and putting them in their car.

Cousins Micah (19) and Caleb (18) drove around rescuing as many koalas as they could

Image credits: Alternative 666

Image credits: Alternative 666

The teens plan to look after all their new koala buddies until they’re healthy and it’s safe to let them back into the wild. According to Micah and Caleb, around 60 percent of all the koalas they came across had, unfortunately, burned to death.

“This is our little koala rescue. Just trying to collect as many live ones as we can,” one of the cousins can be heard saying in a video clip they shot, showing the interior of their car.
The guys plan to look after the koalas

Image credits: Alternative 666

The world has done little else but talk about the devastation in Australia (and the possibility of WWIII) in recent weeks. In a previous interview with Bored Panda, Ben Jameson who lives on the Gold Coast, near Brisbane, told us that his friends and family are “coming together, donating money where possible, helping each other out, going to communities to help clean up. Like, just regular people. Not emergency services or defense force. Just normal people.”
Check out their video of the koalas in their car

“A university in Sydney estimates that near 500 million animals have been killed by the fires since September. Half a billion. So many of our animals, wombats, koalas, crocs, platypus, etc. are endangered or threatened species. I don’t think people understand the scale of that number. I’m not sure if our country’s ecosystem and biosphere will recover from this, I really don’t,” Ben told us.

Meanwhile, Sam Mitchell, co-owner of the Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park, told the Guardian that people were delivering injured animals to them, including about 50 koalas.

“At least a third of what has been brought in we’ve had to euthanize, unfortunately,” Mitchell broke the sad news. “We are seeing many burns to hands and feet—fingernails melted off. For some, the burns are just too extreme.”