SYDNEY • Large numbers of bats are being found severely emaciated or starved to death in Australia amid a prolonged drought that is crippling their food supply, according to wildlife carers and environment officials.
There has been a "rapid increase" in the number of stricken native flying foxes found in areas of Queensland and New South Wales over the past two weeks, said rescue group Bats Queensland.
Volunteer wildlife carer Ashley Fraser said yesterday that parts of the picturesque Gold Coast, a popular tourist destination, were "littered" with hundreds of dead bats.
She added that although there have been cases of mass bat starvation in the region in the past, her organisation had never dealt with an event on this scale.
"We can expect to see it get worse. The changing climate is going to worsen the drought and make it a pretty poor environment for bats to try to survive in."
Some flying fox species are listed as vulnerable to extinction. The creatures are also a key pollinator of eucalyptus trees, the koala's main food source.
Queensland's Department of Environment and Science said officials believed the deaths were linked to the impact of the extended drought, as well as of recent bush fires and storms, on the bats' food supply.
Ms Fraser said many of the flying foxes rescued by Bats Queensland were so emaciated that their bodies had begun shutting down beyond the point of repair, forcing carers to euthanise them. Even for those deemed fit enough to survive up to seven weeks of rehabilitation, the future remains uncertain.
"We don't want to be releasing them if there aren't the food sources out there," Ms Fraser said.
All of New South Wales and two-thirds of Queensland have been declared as being in drought, with the Bureau of Meteorology predicting below-average rainfall across much of Australia's eastern region for the rest of the year.
Thousands of flying foxes died across Australia during the last Southern Hemisphere summer in a series of colony collapses caused by heat stress. The increasingly common phenomenon is the result of extreme temperatures, which cause the bats to fall from trees as their brains boil and they succumb to the heat.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
