Nearly 3 billion animals, including mammals, reptiles and birds, were either killed or displaced during Australia's devastating bushfire season of 2019 and 2020, a new study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Tuesday, revealing for the first time the scale of the impact on the country's wildlife.

According to WWF Australia, the new figures are three times the earlier estimate of 1.2 billion released in January. Almost 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds, and 51 million frogs have perished in the bushfire, the WWF said in an interim report believed to be world first research and titled Australia's 2019-2020 Bushfires: The Wildlife Toll.