Orphan Baby Bats Are Hanging In!
Rescued from Aussie floods, swaddled in tiny blankets – that’s a wrap!
Staff at the Australian Bat Clinic and Wildlife Trauma Centre have saved 130 orphaned baby bats so far in the wake of the floods that have ravaged Queensland in past weeks.
Bats are among the animals of all kinds who have been in trouble in north-east Australia.
Storm season is often a challenge to bats, and the clinic saved 350 youngsters during the 2008 storm season. This year, however, they think there’s more going on environmentally than just wild weather.
Clinic director Trish Wemberley says her teams of caregivers have visited several bat roosts on the coast in recent weeks to find 4-week-old babies on the ground covered in maggots and fly eggs.
“They’re coming down to feed on the ground,” Wemberley explained. “That makes them vulnerable. It’s not a natural occurrence and shows there is trouble in the environment. Bats are a barometer to what is going on in the environment.
They’re our canaries down the coal mine.”
The surviving youngsters are swaddled in clean dust cloths and are bottle fed and then kept either hanging on clothes lines or in special intensive care units until they are ready to fly again in about four weeks.
Related stories:
Australia Flood Called Disaster of Biblical Proportions
Animals in the Australia Floods
Posted January 10, 2011, by Zoe
Would you PLEASE consider making this photo into a poster for sale to raise money? My daughter is a bat fan and would LOVE to have this for her dorm next year.
We don't own the photo, or would do this in a heartbeat! But you could contact the bat sanctuary in Australia and invite them to.
It is heart-warming to see the babies, and as well to know that there are wonderful people who will make the effort to save them. We need more and more of those and less who turn a blind eye and care only about themselves. All life, in any form is precious--excluding, in my view, those who we see and hear about who have no compassion...You know who you are.
What a precious picture and heart-arming story. It is scary that the bats are changing their regular habits. And even scarier are all the deaths going on around the world with flocks of birds, crabs, cows, doves...something is going on.
Yes, Mélanie, really heartwarming. In the News, not a word about all the many animals were drowned by the flood. So sad... Hopefully some clinics like this one did manage to save some...
Great job the rescuers are doing! They have my utmost respect and gratification. The photo is heartwarming. I'm surprised they need to be swaddled, but I no little about bats, and even less about Australian ones. m.
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[...] Zoe – It’s Our Nature : Orphan Baby Bats Are Hanging In!Jan 10, 2011 … Staff at the Australian Bat Clinic and Wildlife Trauma Centre have saved 130 orphaned baby bats so far in the wake of the floods that have … [...]