Help Baby Bats Take Flight!

Hello and G’day from Sydney, Australia!

My name is Susan Parrish Smith and I am the new Project Manager for the GlobalGiving Project named Help Baby Bats Take Flight. I work directly with previous Manager Fiona Bassett. Fiona is still very much involved with the baby bats and I have included an update below of her four pups she had in care this season.

 First, I want to say thank you for your generous donations which allows us to continue to rescue, rehabilitate and release flying foxes back into the wild. We would not succeed without your steadfast donations.

We are experiencing a very busy 2024 in releasing bats to the wild and it is only the fourth month of the year. Every season we begin planning for their eventual release to the wild as soon as the first pup is rescued. This planning started in October 2023 keeping count of rescues in order to secure spots in surrounding pup release cages. There are a limited amount of release cages in Sydney and surrounds. Many of them charge a certain amount per bat per week they are in the release cage. This can get very expensive if you have 100 bats in care in your organisation.

The general timeline for babies in care begins with the rescue and stabilisation. These babies will be very dehydrated when they come into care. The baby is moved to its permenant carer once it it hydrated and drinking milk. Baby flying foxes have milestones they must meet in a very limited time if they are orphaned at a young age. For orphaned pups, this begins as soon as they are in our care and the milestones must be met by twelve weeks in age. If they were still on their mum, it is a very gradual and meaningful process as their mum teaches them where the food is, how to clean themselves, learning how to fly, and successfully find mum through specific calls if they venture too far.

Between twelve and fourteen weeks of age, the pups will enter our crèche cage at Lane Cove National Park.The pups will stay about four weeks, learning to be a flying fox pup amongst many other flying foxes and we will also work to dehumanise them. Once their short stay is finished, the pups will move to a release cage. As you may know from previous updates, we originally used a release cage at the base of the Gordon Flying Fox Camp (Sydney, NSW) until 2021 when the maternal colony did not return for birthing season. We managed to transport our pups to Bellingen’s Mid North Coast (MNC) Camp for a few seasons. And with heaps of babies in care this season, we had to find a new solution as MNC did not have room for our babies along with their lot. We needed a solution and we needed it fast.

In conjunction with another wildlife organisation, we managed to get a portable release cage set up in one of the largest flying fox camps in regional Sydney. The cage is large, 20m in length and around 8m wide. It took money from your dopnations to "kit out the cage" with items that keep it sustainable with one to two volunteers visiting everyday. This is on top of the baby bats still waiting in the crèche cage to be transferred along with 30+ adult bats in the only adult release cage available in Sydney. The adults are in the release cage to rebuild flying muscles they lost while in recovery.

The baby bat release cage has a “bedroom” set up on one end and their eating room at the other end. There are hooks hanging from the ceiling of the cage which holds buckets of fruit volunteers will hang every evening at dusk. Our first round of pups went in on 9 March 2024. They spent three days in the cage and the hatch was opened to allow for a night release. We continued to feed outside the cage for any pups who might need extra time finding food on their own. The release cage is right inside the camp so all they need to do is fly up and there is their new family. Grey-headed Flying Foxes are not territorial so all are welcome in any camp. The hatch to the cage was closed a week later and we fed outside the cage for another 3 weeks. When there is food left over in these outside buckets, it is time to end the support feeding. Fiona’s bat babies Andy, Lucky and Neila were released in this first group of 28 pups. Callie was moved to the release cage this past weekend along with 26 other pups. We still have another 20 or so pups to be moved to the release cage for this season.

It’s been a wild ride during this 2023-2024 flying fox baby bat season and we couldn’t have done it without your help! We feel privileged that you selected our project to support out of so many wonderful causes. By adding your donation, you've become a part of our community of supporters, and we're thrilled to have you on the team.

Please consider telling your friends and family about our project. Sharing with your community about why you chose to support our organization will help us increase the work we can do to support the flying-foxes.

Thank you so much for all your generous donations that enable us to continue to rescue, rehabilitate and release back into the wild the flying-foxes that come into care. We could not do it without your help.

Unfortunately, this year’s pup season has coincided with a mass starvation event occurring down the east coast of Australia leaving the already vulnerable Grey Headed Flying Foxes at risk. Starving mothers are struggling to produce milk for the pups and many pups coming into care are underweight. On top of this, we have had a few very hot days this summer – above 40⁰C (104⁰F) which has resulted in heat stress events occurring in some of the flying fox camps. Heat stress occurs when the body produces more heat than it can dissipate and can result in death. The adult females will often die leaving behind the young pup.

Caring for orphan pups is a consuming job, with pups needing up to 5 milk feeds a day, daily cleaning of the wing membrane and some time in the sun. In addition, as carer, you need to spend time with the pup, one on one, developing the bond with them as their surrogate mother. Pups will be in care until they are 12-13 weeks old and depending on how many pups you have in care at the one time, it is a full-time job. Once they are 12 weeks old, the pups will be placed into bat creche at Kukundi, where they start the dehumanising process and learn appropriate bat behaviour and how to interact with other pups.

I have been privileged to care for 4 flying fox pups this season and below are their stories:

Neila

Neila was found on the ground on mum who was deceased, unknown cause of death. She was a premmie pup, not registering on our growth charts for weight or forearm. She weighed 53g (1.9oz) and as she was only taking in the smallest of volumes of milk, she was being fed 6-7 times a day. Neila did not have much fur on her face or belly for a very long time – she looked a little like an alien and hence why she was named Nelia (alien spelt backwards). The lack of fur growth may have been due to nutritional deficiencies in utero. Neila has a delightful laid-back personality and entered creche last weekend, on her way to being released.

Lucky

Lucky came into care at 3 weeks old. She was found on her mum (deceased) on an extremely busy road in my local area – hence her name Lucky, as she was lucky not to have been run over by a car. Mum was electrocuted on powerlines and had come off the lines onto the road below. As a result, Lucky had multiple abrasions, swellings and bruising from the contact with the bitumen road. It took a long while to get her stabilised and every time we looked at her new abrasions and injuries appeared. She also is a relaxed pup who has gone into creche along with Neila.

Callie

Callie came into care when she was 3 days old. Mum was electrocuted and still on the powerlines. This type of rescues requires assistance from the power company who send out a truck to retrieve the pup from the lines. We can often be waiting for hours for the power truck to arrive. Callie had burns to her left trouser membrane (the membrane that runs down her leg) and lower left wing membrane. At this stage Callie is a thriving and healthy 10 weeks old pup and will soon join the others in bat creche.

Andy

Andy is also a very lucky pup. We had some wild weather in November which had brought down a large tree limb in a local suburb. Our State Emergency Services had been called in to cut up the tree limb and remove it from the road. As they were doing this one the SES people noticed this little bat pup – lucky for him. There was no sign of mum. Andy was 4 weeks old when he came into care. On examination we found all his injuries were all on his left side (bruises and abrasions), with his forearm being very swollen. Trip to the Vet and x-ray showed that he had a broken left radius. The concern with a break like that is whether the bone will continue to grow and will it affect his flight ability. Today Andy is a flier, in fact he was one of the first pups in care to fly. He will be heading off to creche buddies this weekend.

We feel privileged that you selected our project to support out of so many wonderful causes. By adding your donation, you've become a part of our community of supporters, and we're thrilled to have you on the team.

Please consider telling your friends and family about our project. Sharing with your community about why you chose to support our organization will help us increase the work we can do to support the flying-foxes.