Help Baby Bats Take Flight!

Dearest Amazing Supporters,

It's beginning to get frosty here in Sydney, but I'm still hearing the flying foxes arguing over blossoms in the eucalypts above my apartment building, which is across the National Park from Kukundi Rehab facility. It seems not all the flying sky puppies have left yet to travel north for warmer weather, and thats probably due to warmer than normal temperatures the last few months.

We've had about 150 adult and juvenile grey-headed flying-foxes through the facility in the last three months. These gorgeous animals still manage to get themselves into trouble through various means, such as getting caught in fruit tree nets, or just ending up in strange situations, such as getting stuck inside human houses. The last round of adults are about to come through the facility and hopefully into the release aviary in the next couple of weeks, which means that Kukundi will actually close down for a period this winter! OMG!

This is not only exciting for the majority of our volunteers that get to have a rest before the next pup season, but it's also GREAT NEWS for the facility, because we have all sorts of excellent and important maintenance jobs planned! Most of it involves new coats of hardcore washable paint, new climbing implements to string up for future guests and repairs to mesh and roofing, but we're also hoping to hear we have the go-ahead to build our new cool room to store fruit. This will cool room will save us money and time and also fruit in the long run, so wish us luck!

Any Flying-foxes that come into care over winter get the supreme luxury of hanging out with carers at their home and getting horribly spoiled with fruit to heal up for release when spring comes back. They're the first guests to enjoy the sparkling, like-new aviaries, before their eventual release.

I recently had the chance to visit the Bellingen Camp up on the north coast of New South Wales, I'll attach some pictures. Whenever I visit one of the camps, I like to believe that one or two up in those trees probably are one, or know a fellow bat that has been cared for and released by a carer somewhere; its so lovely to think that these animals are free and that we can all help them to be so, in some small way.

Whether it's from rescue or care, volunteering or donating money, or even just having wildlife-safe netting on our backyard fruit trees, every little bit helps. And we can't do it without your support!

THANK YOU!!

Georgina

What a season! We've all heaved a huge sigh of relief here in Sydney, Summer wasn't as harsh here this year for our flying-foxes as it was in other parts of the country- a small blessing for most Sydney bats, but then the weather hasn't been as kind to other camps.

We did have a fair few heat stress events occur along the East Coast however, with our Parramatta, Emu Plains and Campbelltown camps being effected the most- we had 62 pups into care in Sydney Wildlife from those areas- way more than we'd like, but much less than camps up in Queensland, those poor animals.

All up this season, we've had 122 pups come through Kukundi facillity, 27 were released a couple weeks ago, with another 40 ready to be released this weekend; the pups are transfered from our flight aviary to a secret location in Ku-Ring-Gai National Park, the release aviary has a big hatch on one side that is opened to allow the juveniles to come out into the bush and to fly out when they're ready. We supplement feed them, in case they're a bit shy at first, but eventually they find the sky on their own! The next lot of pups will be ready to be moved from Kukundi into the flight aviary soon.

It isn't just pups we have at kukundi, however! We also have a large aviary where adults are kept for the last bit of their rehabilitation before release; we've had a monstrous netting season this year, unfortunately, and it's not just the juveniles that get themselves into trouble.

If you have fruit trees in your yard, you should definitely make sure you're using wildlife friendly netting to protect your crops, as well as your local wildlife! Here is a fantastic site with some great recommendations for what to look for in picking out some safe wildlife friendly netting.

I want to thank all our amazing supporters for everything they have done to help the pups this season! We're 100% run by busy volunteer bat slaves, and there's no way we could do it without YOU! Your generousity is integral to caring for and eventually releasing this pivotal keystone species back into the wild where they belong!

THANK YOU!! And best wishes for the new year!!

Georgina

PS. I'm attaching some adorable pictures taken by Fiona, one of our Bat Slave Managers at Kukundi. Enjoy!