Lewis the Koala: His Bushfire Rescue and Why He Was Put to Sleep

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Originally published 2019-12-01.

Remembering Lewis the Koala After the 2019 Bushfire Rescue

Lewis the koala became one of the best-known animals of Australia's 2019–20 bushfire season. In November 2019, a local grandmother, Toni Doherty, was filmed running into burning bushland in New South Wales, wrapping a badly burned koala in her shirt and pouring water over him. He was taken to the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital and named Ellenborough Lewis. About a week later, on 26 November 2019, the hospital decided to put him to sleep because his burns were getting worse and would not heal.

The image above pairs a memorial drawing with a photo of a koala in care, his paws and legs wrapped in bright bandages, as burned koalas were treated at the hospital. Here is what happened to Lewis, why vets made the choice they did, and what the fires really meant for koalas, including a claim about their "extinction" that spread widely at the time and was not accurate.

The rescue caught on camera

The fires around Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast began in late October 2019 and burned for weeks. Doherty and her partner, Peter, were near Long Flat, inland from the town, when she spotted an injured koala close to the fire.

She ran into the smoke, wrapped him in her shirt, then emptied water bottles over his singed fur while bystanders filmed. The footage shows patches of fur burned away and the koala calling out in distress. It was shared around the world within hours.

The koala was given his name in a mix of ways: "Ellenborough", reportedly after the area of the fire, and "Lewis" after one of Doherty's grandchildren.

Why the koala hospital put Lewis to sleep

At the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, Lewis was treated for burns to his hands, feet, arms and the insides of his legs. Staff gave him strong pain relief and care around the clock, and changed his dressings under anaesthetic.

On the morning of 26 November 2019, vets anaesthetised him again to check the burns. They found that the wounds had worsened and would not improve. The hospital decided not to wake him up. In its statement, a spokesperson said: "The Koala Hospital's number one goal is animal welfare."

That decision upset many people who had followed his story, but it reflects a principle wildlife vets apply widely. Koalas with severe burns to their paws may never climb or grip again, and a koala that cannot climb cannot feed or escape danger. Keeping an animal alive in prolonged pain, with no hope of returning to the wild or living comfortably, is not seen as kind.

News of his death spread quickly, and the reaction online showed how many people had come to care about one small animal:

I’m glad they were at least able to comfort him. It’s so sad.

— lynn180 (@lynn180_lynn) November 26, 2019

(This post is no longer available on X.)

(The Facebook post originally embedded here is no longer available.)

What the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital does

The Port Macquarie Koala Hospital is a dedicated koala rescue and rehabilitation centre run largely by volunteers. During the 2019 fires, its staff and carers went into burned areas to search for survivors and brought in koalas suffering from burns, smoke inhalation and dehydration.

Lewis's story drove a surge of donations. A GoFundMe appeal set up by the hospital raised about 1.66 million dollars from donors around the world. The hospital later asked donors to support other groups caring for injured koalas, such as Port Stephens Koalas and Taree Koalas in Care.

Some koalas treated during that season did recover and were later released into regenerating bushland. Lewis's case was a reminder that a dramatic rescue is only the start: the outcome depends on injuries that are often worse than they first appear.

Were koalas "functionally extinct"? No

In the same week, a claim went viral that koalas had become "functionally extinct", meaning too few remained to breed successfully or play their role in the ecosystem. Posts like the one below added that the fires had wiped out 80% of their habitat:

The phrase had been used earlier in 2019 by Deborah Tabart of the Australian Koala Foundation. Scientists disputed it then and again during the fires. Speaking to National Geographic, ecologists from the University of Queensland and the University of Tasmania pointed out that koalas were threatened in parts of their range but not in others, and that the fires had not changed the species' overall status. The Port Macquarie Koala Hospital also called the claim alarmist.

The 80% figure was also wrong. At that point the fires in New South Wales and Queensland had burned roughly 1 to 2.5 million hectares, while eastern Australia has more than 100 million hectares of forest where koalas can live. As one fire scientist noted, burned forest is not automatically "destroyed" for koalas, since eucalypts often regrow.

None of this made the losses small. Reports in late 2019 put the number of koalas found dead in northern New South Wales at between 350 and 1,000, and some researchers estimated that a third of the koalas in the fire zones may have died. Early local estimates suggested that hundreds of koalas around Port Macquarie had been lost, though numbers like these are very hard to confirm.

The bigger picture: the Black Summer fires and koala status

The fires that killed Lewis were part of what Australians call the Black Summer. By the time the last New South Wales fires were put out in March 2020, around 24 million hectares had burned across the country. Thirty-three people died directly, and smoke was linked to hundreds more deaths. Scientists estimated that about three billion native animals, mostly reptiles, were killed or displaced.

The fires added to longer-term pressures on koalas: land clearing, drought, disease, dog attacks and road traffic. In February 2022, the Australian government listed koala populations in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory as endangered. Internationally, the IUCN rates the species as vulnerable.

Population counts remain uncertain. A government scientific committee estimated around 92,000 koalas in 2021, while a 2025 national monitoring programme led by CSIRO produced a much higher estimate, partly because of better survey methods. Both figures come with wide margins.

Koala facts and how to help injured wildlife

A few points are often misunderstood:

  • Koalas are not bears. They are marsupials, carrying their young in a pouch. Their closest living relatives are wombats. "Koala bear" is a leftover from early European settlers.
  • They cannot outrun most fires. Koalas tend to climb higher into trees when threatened, which protects them from ground fires but not from intense crown fires.
  • Burned paws are a serious injury. Koalas rely on their hands and feet to climb and feed, which is why paw burns are so often fatal.

If you find an injured koala or other wild animal in Australia, call a licensed wildlife rescue group such as WIRES in New South Wales, or your state's wildlife hotline. Do not try to handle a frightened koala yourself unless rescuers tell you to: they have strong claws and can bite. Keeping the animal quiet, away from dogs and traffic, and noting the exact location helps rescuers reach it quickly.

Lewis did not survive, but his rescue made millions of people pay attention to what fires do to wildlife, and much of the money raised in his name went on to help other koalas recover.

Sources: Port Macquarie News; National Geographic; Wikipedia: Koala; Wikipedia: 2019–20 Australian bushfire season; Port Macquarie Koala Hospital on Facebook.

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