More than six months after cataclysmic bushfires incinerated an Iowa-size swath of Australia, estimates of the staggering number of native animals killed continue to grow even as the fate of surviving wildlife remains largely unknown.

“The data is still coming in, but if anything, the estimate that a billion animals died was more conservative than I realized,” says Chris Dickman, a University of Sydney ecologist who calculated the preliminary death toll. “I think there’s no doubt that some species will go extinct.”

The COVID-19 pandemic abruptly halted most recovery efforts in March. Travel restrictions and social distancing mandates left many scientists homebound and scores of species struggling to survive in apocalyptic landscapes. The lockdown came as the Australian government identified 119