The City of Greater Bendigo and Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning have been preparing Rosalind Park’s permanent residents for a heat wave.
A colony of grey-headed flying foxes – a rare species of bat – that arrived in 2010 had their home watered down on Wednesday and will be monitored over the next two days as temperatures rise above 40 degrees.
City of Greater Bendigo’s acting manager of parks and open space Daniel McWilliam said council works alongside DELWP to care for the bats.
“The bats are a threatened species so there are things that need to happen,” he said.
“The management of bats through the heatwave is led by DELWP and we provide support, give them access to the park and fernery.
“We change our irrigation in the fernery so the mist is constantly through day during heat events.”
Council will operate the misters in the fernery from 11am to 5pm on Thursday and Friday as DELWP officers monitor the bats.
DELWP forest and wildlife officer Phuong Tran said the grey-headed flying foxes were adapting to the environment.
“It is a lot hotter and not as humid as their northern habitat so they are not as well adapted to prolonged periods of high temperatures,” she said.
“Council is responsible for day to day management of the site and colony but when there are weather forecasts and prolonged temperatures over 40 degrees, DELWP works with council to monitor the colony for signs heat stress.”
Ms Tran said signs of heat stress in the bats included them flapping the wings, moving to lower parts of the trees and flying low to dip their bellies into water.
DELWP has protocols in place to intervene in the colony when necessary.
“We like to keep wild animals wild but when human intervention is required we will intervene,” Ms Tran said.
“We have (trained and vaccinated) volunteers who are willing to come out and help treat the animals.
“Base on how the bats are responding to the heat, we may set up a triage area is to manage volunteers in treating the animals as well as our staff.”
Treatment of the bats may include spray the flying foxes with water, giving them fluids, taking them into care or transporting them to a vet.
“Hopefully any treatment can be done straight away but in extreme cases they are taken into care,” Ms Tran said.
“There have been some cases where bats drop out of trees and die. During a heat stress event in 2014 we had a number of flying foxes died.
“It was around about 100 mostly juveniles because they hadn’t acclimatised to the weather and couldn’t tolerate conditions.”
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