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 the flying-foxes that come into care. We could not do it without your help
It has been an interesting season, with lower than usual numbers of pups coming into care in Sydney and surrounds. This has not been the case in other parts of the New South Wales where they have been inundated with pups. Carers in Sydney have helped by taking the overflow of pups to raise and we have then sent them back up north for crèche and release.
We have still had the usual number of adults and sub-adults that have needed to be rescued – caught in fruit netting, collisions with cars or buildings, or poor first flight of this year’s juveniles. The extreme weather over the last few months has also not helped, where we have had continued excessive rainfall, causing flooding in many areas of New South Wales and negatively affecting the food supply of the flying -foxes. Many of the rescued bats have come into care underweight in addition to their various injuries.
We have just finished with our last group of adult and sub-adult flying-foxes through the release aviary Kukundi and opened that hatch for them last weekend. This group have dispersed very quickly – sometimes it takes weeks for the last to leave and for us to stop support feeding them. Obviously in a hurry to leave, which is great. During their final pre-release health check, we were surprised to find two mums with very young pups on board. Surprised as these pups are very late babies - only born in late February. It was decided that it would be less stressful for them to be transported north for a soft release option and where they could be monitored more closely during their release.
So, a road trip up north was planned. Along with the 2 mums and pups, I still had some juveniles in care that also needed to go north either for creche or to be released. 18 flying-foxes in total took the car trip up north with my daughter and I to Bellingen (a 6-hour road trip). Three of the juveniles in the trip included
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