At least half of Australia's only disease-free koala population, a key "insurance" for the species' future, is feared dead with more badly hurt after bushfires swept through an island sanctuary, rescuers said Sunday.

Kangaroo Island, a popular nature-based tourist attraction off the coast of South Australia state, is home to many wild populations of native animals including the much-loved koala, where the populated was estimated at 50,000.

Massive bushfires have flared up in the vast country's southeast in a months-long crisis, killing nearly half a billion native animals in New South Wales state alone, scientists estimate.

Conditions have been particularly severe in recent days, with an ongoing blaze on Kangaroo Island spreading rapidly and razing 170,000 hectares -- one-third of the island -- on Friday.

"Over 50 percent (of the population) has been lost," Sam Mitchell of Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park, which is raising funds to care for the injured koalas, told AFP.

"Injuries are extreme. Others have been left with no habitat to go back to, so starvation will be an issue in coming weeks."

A University of Adelaide study published in July found that the Kangaroo Island koala species is particularly important to the survival of the wider population as it is the only large group free from chlamydia.

The bacterial infection -- which causes blindness, infertility and death in the species -- is widespread in koalas in the eastern Queensland and New South Wales states and also occurs in Victoria state.

"They are an insurance population for the whole population," the University of Adelaide's Jessica Fabijan, who carried out the study, told AFP. "These fires have ravaged the population."

Fabijan said massive bushfires in New South Wales and Victoria's Gippsland region, home to major koala populations, is also expected to have killed many animals.

"It's one of the biggest tragedies for the population since the late 1800s when they used to hunt them for their fur," she added.

Habitat loss, dog attacks, car strikes and climate change have already led to a sharp decline in the furry marsupial's population, which is believed to have numbered more than 10 million prior to European settlement of the continent in 1788.

The koalas cannot be removed from the island due to their chlamydia-free status, the state government said, adding that veterinarians were rescuing and treating the injured animals on-site.

Eight mutilated lions discovered at S.African game farm
Johannesburg (AFP) Jan 4, 2020 - South African police on Saturday said they had launched an investigation after eight mutilated lion carcasses were discovered at a private game farm.

"They were illegally hunted yesterday morning at one of the lodges in the vicinity of Swartruggens," police spokesman Sabata Mokgwabone told AFP.

He added that "the snouts and paws were cut off from all the lions".

Local media reported that poachers were thought to have fed the lions, found at the game farm in the country's North West province, with poisoned chicken, but police refused to speculate saying investigations were still underway.

"Apparently chicken carcasses were found nearby, so it's just a suspicion... that they might have been poisoned and the lions were fed with the chickens," said Mokgwabone.

"This a matter still under investigation," he said.

No arrests have been made yet and the motive remains unclear.

Some previous cases of lions killings in South Africa have been speculated to be for the big cats' body parts which are used in so-called traditional medicine.

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