Help Baby Bats Take Flight!

On 14 October, I received a call from my daughter's former Year Coordinator, Amy. She said her daughter, Millie and boyfriend Henry found a baby bat on its dead mum on someone's driveway...who do we call??? 

The back story on this relationship begins years ago when Millie was still in primary school. In 2024, Millie finished her HSC's and is a beautiful young lady inside and out! When she was younger, I was the "winter carer" for the adult flying foxes who were not ready to be released or pregnant mothers who were kept back due to horrific injuries. Anyway, by the time the pups were born to those mothers, I had a total of 24 bats in care for five months. I invited Amy to bring Millie and her younger sister Eva to see the bats, experience what they are about and hopefully learn a few life-long lessons. They were enamoured, fascinated and asked some great questions. I hoped they walked away with the understanding that the world desperately needs flying foxes to survive and to never ever pick up a bat.

Fast forward to October 2024 and Amy promptly told me that Millie did not touch the bat. She remembered what I told her years ago and proceeded to find around the area: an old plant pot, a long stick and a towel. The pup grabbed the stick and Millie immediately placed it in the pot and put the towel over the baby. I told Amy to send Millie and the bat to me and I would stabilise the little one. I really enjoy how my love of flying foxes taught 2 girls some important lessons that took 5 years to come to fruition. When Millie and Eva arrived, they had a squirmy, screeching octopus in that pot. With a little TLC and a much needed mumma roll, the pup turned out to be a 10 day old little boy who weighed a whopping 74g.

I asked Millie and her boyfriend Henry to give me a name for the little pup. They took a day or two and came up with Finn. Sweet boy Finn is now 65 days old weighing 221g. He is still slightly underweight so his bottles contain goats’ milk, full fat yoghurt and a pinch of High Protein Supplement. He has started on fruit in the evenings and I'm hoping he will begin to love the small pieces of apple and pear...not so much right now!

Six days ago, I received my second pup. She was found at the base of the Balgowlah Flying Fox Camp without a mum in sight. My best friend from Texas, USA asked if she could name a pup this year so I texted her asking for a female name. She gave me Alice, Roxy and Olive. The little girl hadn’t been with me for more that 12 hours so I picked the one I liked which was Olive. That lasted about 24 hours. Nope, this little sassafras girl needed an independent, strong female name so she became Roxy on the third day. And she has no trouble filling those independent strong stilettos. 

Roxy is 2 days older than Finn and is also very underweight so she is receiving the "all the extras but the kitchen sink" bottles 4 times a day. Because Roxy came into care as a wild 9-week-old pup, she is still settling into care, still not sure if I'm a good thing but definitely loves the fruit served each night and the belly rubs she receives while drinking her bottle. 

Finn and Roxy will stay with me until their creche cage is ready at Lane Cove National Park. We are projecting to open on 4 January to receive more than 75 pups from the Sydney Regional area. The 4 January crew will begin the first of many 4-week cycles to dehumanise the pups. Each group of pups will be moved to a release cage far within the Centennial Park Flying Fox colony to make sure all orphaned pups are given the best chance to survive the 2024-2025 season and thrive.