Tolga Bat Hospital newsletter June 2021

OUR COVID YEAR June 2021

Overall the last 12 months went very well for the Bat Hospital. We had plenty of volunteers for the annual tick paralysis and barbed wire seasons, both local and live-in; we were successful with a few grants and had some rest from running tours at our Visitor Centre. Rescues included 350 bats from barbed wire fences (mostly Little Red flying foxes) and just under 300 Spectacled flying fox orphans.

Meet our November 2020 volunteers. Despite the lack of international people we were lucky to attract enough volunteers within Queensland, many of them couples in campervans.

Bat Hospital Visitor Centre

Our Visitor Centre has again been voted into Best of Queensland Experiences by the 4 leading tourism bodies of this state. We are also still #1 on Tripadvisor for attractions in the Atherton Tablelands, and rated in Tripadvisor's top 10% attractions worldwide for consistently good reviews. Our off-site school talks through Tinaroo Environmental Centre also continue strongly. Yay for getting out positive messages about bats!!

New Rehabilitation Cage

The Exhibition Permit for our permanent care bats requires they are kept separate to the bats under our Rehabilitation Permit who are to be released. So just when we thought our building days were over.... this is our new cage, same design as the large cage but a bit smaller. To learn more...

The Danger of Glue Traps

This poor little chap Johnny was caught on a glue trap intended for flies. We used a light oil to help remove the glue and then baby shampoo to remove the oil. Luckily he was able to be released again but many animals finding themselves in his situation are not as fortunate. Please do not use these glue traps for any animals, it is a horrible, horrible death for them. To learn more...

Fruit tree netting

Victoria is leading the way with banning the use of backyard fruit netting with a mesh size greater than 5mm. To learn more about the correct use of fruit tree netting ...

Tube-nosed fruit bats

Every year we get more tube nosed bats into care from barbed wire fences. This year we have already had 12. In April we began soft releasing the pups born at the end of 2020.
To learn more about our innovative soft release program, scroll to the bottom of this page link and be sure to watch the last 3 videos on youtube capturing night videos ....

Spectacled flying fox Recovery Team
A recovery team has been meeting for several months and submissions have been made with the state and federal governments to uplist the Spectacled flying foxes to critically endangered. Meanwhile meetings are held monthly to develop a recovery plan.

Volunteer Spotlight

Meet Shannon from the UK who has travelled here 4 times in the last 5 years - needless to say she couldn't come last year and won't be able to this year. Shannon has a natural connection with all animals including humans and is now studying in the UK to be a zoo keeper. She's a big part of the bat hospital family.

Researchers
The sad catastrophe of hundreds of dead tick paralysed bats and barbed wire bats means we are able to provide researchers with dead bodies in good physical condition. At the end of 2020 we were able to provide 3 researchers with about 200 dead bats for studies into windfarm fatalities, retroviruses, congenital cleft palate syndrome, trypanosomatidae and tick paralysis. Researchers were from University of Queensland, James Cook University and a local ecological consulting firm.

STOP PRESS Bayside City Council in Victoria has just set an enormously important precedent for animal welfare in Australia by its legislation around the use/removal of barbed wire. Scroll down to item 10.13 of the meeting Minutes to understand the full scope and impact of this remarkable achievement.

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