Thousands of hectares of prime koala habitat near Port Macquarie has been burnt during this week's Crestwood-Lake Cathie fire, killing as many as 350 of the marsupials and many other species.
Wildlife researchers visited some of the areas destroyed in the bushfire but only located two live koalas during a survey of about 100 hectares.
"The whole place went up at once," Scott Castle said, assistant clinical director at the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie. "About two-thirds of the area that was burnt is good quality [koala] habitat."
Koala colonies in other parts of the state have also been hit during this season's fierce fires, potentially hammering numbers of a species already listed as "vulnerable" in NSW.