By Fiona Bassett | Project Manager
Thank you so much for all your generous donations that enable us to continue to rescue, rehabilitate and release back into the wild our beautiful bats. We could not do it without your help
Pup season has finally come to an end this year and it has been a relatively quiet season for us. We opened crèche for our first intake of pups on January 16 2021. Throughout the following 3 months we had 67 pups go through our care – 34 females and 43 males. This year has been a little different as the colony of flying foxes that we normally release our pups into, left the camp very early in the year. Our normal process of release involves 3-4 weeks at Kukundi in the crèche cage where the pups dehumanise and learn appropriate bat behaviour and how to interact with other pups. After this time we take the pups to a special release cage in the bush, about 500 metres away from an established bat camp. After a week in this cage, to acclimatise to the new environment, we open the hatch and the pups are able to join the local camp. It is here they learn to fly out each night to seek food and they learn to navigate their area and build up flight fitness. Normally this colony departs from this location and head up north sometime during April. Unfortunately, however, this year they left very early in the season, which has meant we have had to find alternative places to release our pups. Our final group of 40 pups headed off this morning on a 5-hour road trip up north to Bellingen, where they will be released into a local camp in that area and be supported by the fabulous bat people of the area.
Over the next few weeks we will be commencing work on both the crèche cage and the flight aviary floors. The concrete floors have been down for sometime and are showing signs of wear and tear. We are going to temporarily close the cages and get the floors re-done. Part of this process will focus on improving the drainage in both cages, which will help immensely with the daily cleaning process.
On a more personal note, my daughter and I had the privilege of raising 11 pups throughout the current season. Some were from mums who had been electrocuted on power lines, some had unfortunately fallen off mum during her nightly fly out and one little boy was a “premmie” pup – mum was incapacitated and was being attacked by bird, which resulted in her giving birth prematurely to this little one.
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Thank you again for all you have done to help this cause.
With gratitude
By Fiona Bassett | Project Manager
By Fiona Bassett | Project Manager
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