4,500 Flying Foxes Drop Dead In 3 Days In Melbourne Park, Unable to Withstand Heat
Incapable of surviving the extreme, relentless heat that gripped Melbourne in December, the flying foxes were dying. Across three days just before Christmas, when temperatures exceeded 110 degrees Fahrenheit, 4,500 of the park’s gray-headed flying foxes perished—15 percent of the colony’s population.
The tragedy for flying foxes in the park echoes scenes of wildlife suffering across the country and puts a spotlight on the perils of extreme heat, which for some species can be just as deadly as fire. Great and small, fast and slow, Australia’s endemic animals are falling victim to the heatwaves and fires that are ravaging the country at an unprecedented scale. It’s the hottest and driest summer in Australia in recorded history. As the planet warms, large-scale fires are becoming more frequent, and bushfire seasons are getting longer.
For gray-headed flying foxes, which are classified as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the Yarra Bend event is not isolated. “The colony in Adelaide suffered even worse,” says Brend. Several thousand flying fox babies died there from extreme heat between November and January, says Justin Welbergen, associate professor of animal ecology at Western Sydney University and president of the Australasian Bat Society. On January 4, many thousands of flying fox babies died across multiple roosts in and around the Sydney region in New South Wales, where the temperature reached a record-breaking 121 degrees Fahrenheit. Welbergen’s team, which monitors flying fox heat stress conditions, is calculating a final death toll.
This summer’s extreme heat and extreme fires, which have imperiled Australia’s entire eastern coast—prime flying-fox habitat—“risk wiping out the 2019 generation” of newborn bats, Brend says. Some 80 percent of flying fox pups are born in October. They were young and vulnerable when heat waves and wildfires broke out late last year.
EDIT
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/01/flying-foxes-are-dying-en-masse-in-australias-extreme-heat/
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