ANNUAL COORDINATOR REPORT
ADULT FLYING FOX SPECIES
WOW!!!! We survived another spring and summer.
Sadly, again we had to endure a large number of Flying Foxes suffering fruit netting and barb wire entrapment.
The rescue numbers for January and February are frightening, in January our rescues alone came to 50 with February coming a close second with 41 rescues, when you add the rescues by Anne Williams and Judy Hopper to the tally, we have had a bad start for the year.
Fortunately as summer waned so has the number of rescues.
Ever year we seem to have a clutch of a certain type of rescue, sometimes it old folk with very few teeth, sometimes pregnant mums or mums that have just given birth, we seldom seem to have a broad spectrum of causes for rescue presented.
This year is no exception because this season we seem to have rescued an unusually large number of juvenile FF, to date 20 plus juveniles have been rescued in a variety situations, but they all showed signs that they were struggling to survive and were drastically under weight and dehydrated.
We are still rescuing juveniles and expect to do so throughout the winter months.
Australian Bat Lyssavirus (ABLV) update.
Recently we rescued an adult female Grey Headed Flying Fox from an address at Blackalls Park, the animal seemed fine for the first day as it ate and drank fluids as normal, on the second day it would only take a small amount of food and fluids but by the third day it refused all attempt to make it eat or drink and sadly on the fourth morning we realised that the poor thing was not going to make it and we decided to have her euthanized. This was carried out by NAEC at Broadmeadow and because we were concerned by the rapid deterioration of the animals health we requested that it be sent of to be checked for ABLV (Australian Bat lyssavisus), the results came back positive for ABLV.
This is a timely warning for all our members that handle any bats to have their blood titre levels checked and ensure that your levels are still in the safe range i.e. above 0.5.
On rescue the animal was alert and bright and the only warning sign we could see was it was not actually trapped on the antenna wire, but hanging on to it voluntarily, which we thought was unusual so we took extra care when handling it, this caution was well placed by the positive result to ABLV.
So, the presence of ABLV will not always be apparent in the first instance, but will slowly become apparent over several days, this is why it is vitally important to take all possible precautions when rescuing any bat, regardless of age or situation.
On a lighter note we were privileged to be able to take our gorgeous education bat, Lacey to the stalls held at Ash Island and Morisset Fair and as always she was a big hit with all that came to see her, she showed off and posed for pictures and everyone loved her.
With Tocal being cancelled she missed out on another chance to show off but there is always next year.
Please submit your current titre levels to me if you decide to rescue or rehab bats this coming year.
Sandra Penman
Adult Flying Fox Coordinator.