Wildlife Conservation South Africa Project #54648

Build SA's 1st Free-Tailed Bat Flight Cage

by Scales Conservation Fund NPC

Project Report | Apr 12, 2022
We are almost there!!

By Amy Aucamp-Clark | Project Leader

Little Free-Tail

This flight cage has been a dream of Jane Burd's ever since she founded ReWild Rehabilitation Centre. Without a flight cage for release preparation free-tailed bats can't go free as they would be unable to sustain flight, end up on the ground and succumb to predators or starvation. So Scales have jumped in with both feet, to not only help make Jane's dream a reality, but also help the 100's of bats in rehabilitation centres and sanctuaries across the country that are releasable, as their freedom is just a flight cage away.

You will notce that we have just reduced our campaign goal, and we want to let you know we have done this. $9835 is a missive target and so to help us reach it we submitted a grant proposal to LUSH with a request for funding towards the project. This past week, we heard the fantastic news that LUSH will be sponsoring 75% of the funds needed for the building of this massive flight cage!!! We are all so excited that we can not begin to express our gratitude in writing but we have been grinning from ear to ear since we heard the fantastic news!

As we had already raised $1600 and LUSH will now be sponsoring 75% of the funds needed we now only need around $1000 to get the job done! hence why we have lowered our target.

So if you can help us to reach this last target, we will be able to get the cage built and the bats completing their release prep in time for spring!! So please help us by spreading the news, and donating a little something today!

Permalink

Mar 10, 2022
A big target for a big project!

By Amy Aucamp-Clark | Project Leader

Anchie Monkey

Anche (aka Anchie Monkey), is a Midas Free-tailed bat pup that arrived at ReWild about a month ago. She was surprisingly and unintentionally rescued by a cat. We don’t know how Anche lost her mother but she was starving to death when the cat found her and carried her inside. The cats owner promptly confiscated the baby bat from the cat and called ReWild. Miraculously Anche was unharmed but her state of dehydration and starvation were life threatening.

Anche was immediately given a life saving injection of fluids, and over the next few days of fluid therapy and nutritious milk formula Anche regained her strength. She has grown so much since her admission to the clinic and is terribly cute and full of character.

Once Anche reaches the age for release, she like the other free-tailed bats at the centre will need to be flight ready before release, and for this they need a "gym" in which to spread their wings. Sadly, there is no flight cage in South Africa large enough to accommodate the training they require prior to release and so they cannot be released and have to be kept in sanctuary at the clinic.

Scales and ReWild have joined forces to build SA's first ever free-tailed bat flight cage and we have set ourselves a target to raise the R150,000 need to complete the project by the end of the winter (Mid September) This is a massive target, but the reality of what this project will provide is even bigger! Allowing free-tailed bats being held in sanctuaries all over the country the opportunity to live life back in the wild where they belong and they can once again contribute to their species and our ecosystem.

Sadly free-tailed bats are facing extinction! They are being killed in their thousands because natural roosts are disappearing due to habitat loss so they take up residence in peoples roofs. This leads to "evictions", which the majority of the time leads to whole colony's being slaughtered with poison!

Every individual life is critical to the continuation of the species, and the only way they can contribute to the existance of their species is by making it back into the wild, to breed and contribute towards thecircle of life.

We have shared some photo's of the flight cages that have been completed earlier this year for the smaller serotine and pipistrelle bats, as well as a slightly larger flight cage that caters for the house and fruit bats. Now whilst it is difficult to show you in the photos the exact size, it might give you an idea of the massive size needed for the free-tailed bats. The medium flight cage is 4 times the size of the small flight cage and the free-tailed flight cage we are aiming to build before the end of September be 3 times the size of the medium flight cage! That's massive!!

Anche was skin and bone when she arrived.

Serotine & Pipistrelle bat flight cage (Small)

House & Fruit Bat Flight Cage (Medium)

Permalink

‹ 1 2

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.