By Maryanne Large | Sydney Wildlife Volunteer
Halloween season is also baby bat season.
Around 6:30 on 30th of October, I got a series of frantic texts. Two bat carers, Lauren and Fiona, had been called out to a rescue. A mother bat had been electrocuted on powerlines, but she was carrying a pup, which was still alive. The members of the public who called it in said that the bat had been up there for a couple of days, so it was really urgent to get the baby down.
The carers had called the electricity company, Ausgrid, but they responded that they may not be able to get there for a day- there were storms passing through and many other calls. As the time ticked away, the carers waiting under the powerlines became increasingly anxious. They called the RSPCA. They called back Ausgrid and reminded them that Grey headed Flying Foxes are a vulnerable species.They asked to escalate the call to the manager, afraid that the baby would not survive another night.
Then finally, on the eve of Halloween, Augrid arrived, and the little bat was brought down. She now in the care of two devoted carers.
They have taken on a big task. Bringing up baby involves 3 months in care, starting off with 5 feeds a day, which you somehow have to fit in with other parts of your daily schedule. Bats are placental mammals and we can feed them cows milk, with a couple of additives. We feed them using tiny baby bottles, and special latex bat teats, to be as much like their mum's as possible. As they get older, we gradually introduce them to solid food (cubes of apple, pear and melon) and the native blossom which is their favourite food in the wild. After 3 months, they move to the communal creche cage, which you have so generously helped to fund.
The creche cage is a sort of bat finishing school. Or possibly a bat Hogwarts. They have space to practice flying, give up their human associates and start being, socially speaking, wholly bat. They learn to hang out together and the complexities of bat social life. And when they have done that, they can do something that really is truely magical, and rejoin the wild.
But that is still a little while away for our little Halloween bat :-).
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