Thousands of bats likely wiped out after soaring temperatures smash starving colonies
A perfect storm of deadly events has seen bats die at every colony across NSW.
While Aussies hung their Christmas decorations over the weekend, the devastating signs of a new macabre tradition were spotted hanging across a city’s trees.
High branches around NSW have been left littered with the bodies of dead grey-headed flying fox pups after soaring temperatures above 40 degrees coincided with a mass starvation event. While rescuers were able to capture dozens of dying animals and take them into care, hundreds, possibly thousands, are believed to have died.
A key reason this endangered species is dying is climate change. They are now regularly impacted by hotter than average summer temperatures as well as storms that wash away one of their key dietary needs — nectar from flowering gums.
Huge amounts of their home range was destroyed during the 2019/2020 Black Summer Bushfires. And while the species is trying to recover, Australia's governments continue to approve the destruction of trees to make way for new housing projects.
If Australia's flying foxes are wiped out, it will have huge ecological consequences, as they are the nation's only long range pollinators and essential for spreading genetic diversity amongst flowering eucalypts.
Despite their importance, some Australians feel inconvenienced by the noise and the "mess" the bats can create across newly cleaned concrete backyards and automobiles. Because some individuals carry the lyssavirus disease, one Sydney mayor controversially told a council meeting the bats should be shot.
Flying foxes in worst-hit colony showing unusual behaviour
One of the worst-hit bat colonies was in Campbelltown in the city’s southwest, where local wildlife advocates believe between 150 and 250 young animals perished. Pictures supplied to Yahoo News Australia show small piles of the tiny creatures littering the ground, while others in the trees appear to have died in their sleep while roosting.
Sydney Wildlife Rescue’s Carla-Maree Simmons was one of the 10 vaccinated and trained rescuers that spent four hours collecting and triaging flying foxes that were dying across the Campbelltown colony on Saturday.
Mass starvation events have already been noted further north at sites including Picton and across South East Queensland. Because the pups coming into care at Campbelltown on the weekend were at least 40 grams underweight it confirmed starvation was now impacting those bat too.
“They’re being hit with everything this year,” Simmons said. “People are complaining about their loud vocalisations in trees, but it’s just them having to fight for food. It’s survival of the fittest.”
“We’ve got adult flying foxes coming in as low as head height into bottlebrush and grafted gums just to get food. And that’s not normal.
“There’s so much development down here. And it’s really hard watching them destroy mature trees. We get that they plant new trees, but they take years to grow."
Flying fox carers overwhelmed by extraordinarily busy season
Busy flying fox carers often feed pups for over 48 hours straight without sleep.
In previous years, overwhelmed volunteers were able to share the load by couriering some of their animals to Queensland. But this year, because of the months-long starvation event, and an increased number of pups being orphaned by power line strikes, those carers are already at capacity.
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WIRES bat rescuer Sarah Curran explained there was loss of life at all colonies across the state, but wildlife investigators are yet to confirm the full scale as they have been unable to enter the forests.
"We don't want to cause extra stress to the surviving animals by stepping into a colony the day after," she told Yahoo. "We need to allow them to recuperate even if that means we can't save them all. It's always a matter of odds, and how we can preserve without causing more harm. That's the fragile balance we have at play."
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