Have you ever wondered what it’s like to work with bats? I am now qualified to tell you. To say it bluntly, it can be a relatively dirty and stinky job. Especially if you are working with megabats. By 7:30am Anneka, a Kiwi ecologist and now dear friend, and I were in the megabat cages shoveling poo. 90 minutes of scraping and spraying equated to at least 5 gallons of poo and food droppings [all of which was later fed to the worms]. It was disgusting! But once we finished, the cages were squeaky clean and would stay that way till the 2:30pm feeding giving us ample time to observe our accomplishments. We fed the megabats fresh apples, banana lollies [fresh bananas stuffed into suet cages], and banana smoothies [a blend of banana, dry milk, infant formula & fruitivorous supplement] everyday. In the wild, they’ll eat a wide variety of fruits and nectar. The free-tailed bats (seemingly micro compared to the macros, but normal sized for a bat in the US) ate mealworms dipped in an insectivore supplement. The free-tailed bats have poo similar to mouse droppings [easy breezy to clean-up], while the macros have green sludgy or brown slimy poo. I’ll spare you the descriptive details. All you need to know is that the bats themselves smell musky and the feces adds another layer of stink. Therefore, if you want to work with bats you need to have a strong stomach.
Aside from the mess they make, megabats are pretty cool. I suspect most of the folks from the States aren’t familiar with megabats due to the fact that there aren’t any native ones in the US and it is illegal to have them as pets. So here’s a brief overview centered around the species we had in Atherton.
As you can tell from the name, megabats are BIG. With a height of 12 inches or more and a wing span of up to 5 feet, they look like flying foxes in the nights sky. As I previously mentioned, macrobats are fruitivorous so there’s no need to be frightened of them. If you ask an Aussie what he or she thinks about megabats, they will likely tell you they are messy and nosy pests, or at least that’s what the skipper on my dive trip told me in Townsville. He’s perception of megabats stems from the bat colonies that form each summer around Australia, and in particular Queensland. A colony can range from 100 to over 1 million bats that sleep, mate and hunt together. Although nocturnal, during the day the bats squeak, shrill and sometimes squabble with one another while hanging in the trees. They also invert themselves (head up, tail down) to pee and poo while hanging in the trees. This leads to a substantial amount of feces underneath the tree, which to the public is perceived as a nuisance. To be honest, it’s quite a sight to see and hear so many bats grouped together in the trees. When I was in Cairns I couldn’t help but notice the thousands of bats hanging outside the public library (all the black specs are megabats). Mom, I think you should work there =)
In the Atherton tablelands, there are three species of megabats that reside or migrate through the area (see pictures below): spectacled flying foxes, little red flying foxes, and grey headed flying foxes. The bat hospital tends to all bats, but is internationally renowned for its work with megabats. The hospital is conveniently located near a small fragment of Tolga scrub, which is the rendezvous point for over 1 million megabats, mainly little red flying foxes, each spring.
|
Spectacled Flying-Fox with baby under wing (left wing). The babies cling to the mothers for a few months while they breast feed from the female’s teats which are located under the wings. |
Little red flying-fox (male & well endowed). |
|
Grey headed flying-fox. |
Little red flying-foxes: bat colony flyout (~ 1million bats flew out over 15 minutes) |
As a volunteer at the hospital, we would conduct colony searches to find injured bats. Most of the injured bats were paralyzed from a parasite known as the paralysis tick. Like the ticks we have back home, the paralysis tick is the size of a small pea. The paralysis ticks, however, emit a toxin into the host as it feasts. This toxin can paralyze and eventually kill bats as well as larger animals like dogs. Fortunately, the toxin merely causes a severe headache and tender spots when injected into a human. All paralyzed bats were picked up off the ground and brought back to the hospital where Jenny, the Tolga bat lady (she lives, breathes and nearly eats bats), would administer an anti-venom. The paralysis tick population booms between October and January often leaving 50 to 100 bats at the mercy of the hospital everyday. The volunteers during this time work 12-15 hour days managing all the incoming animals as well as feeding and cleaning up after the resident ones.
The second leading cause of megabat deaths are barbed wire fences. During the five days I was at the hospital five bats-on-the-fence calls came in. Only one of the fence bats survived. Although it may not sound like a lot, the resident colony has yet to reach capacity, which means many more bats will succumb to the fences in the region this season. Strong gusts of wind whipping across the tablelands drive the bats into the fences. Jenny actively educates the community and encourages farmers to remove barbed fences from their property to protect the bats, but this can be an uphill battle since most Aussies consider the bats to be pests.
All in all, my time at the bat hospital and in Atherton was worth it for the following reasons:
· I put my rabies vaccination to use.
· Anneka was a joy to be around. She’s one of those friends that leaves you smiling because of her silly dances and bat songs, but also has a real passion for exploring the vast and exciting world around us.
· I won’t have to call Kurt when there’s a bat in my room.
· There are few people that know Ray (the blind bat) and Sparky (the electrocuted bat)
· I saw PLATYPUSES in the WILD!!!
I’m off to Western Australia! There’s so much more to see and do. Cheers.
