Reading - Part 5

Australia’s Flying Foxes

Australia’s flying foxes are "curious, gentle and intelligent" – and often misunderstood. Endangered spectacled flying foxes and vulnerable grey-headed flying foxes are "astonishing" animals but misinformation is rife.

One of the most spectacular sights at Adelaide’s Womadelaide music festival is not on the official lineup. As dusk approaches, thousands of grey-headed flying foxes begin chattering and stretching their wings as they prepare to ascend from their roosts in Botanic Park and set out in search of food. "It’s an amazing sight," says associate professor Wayne Boardman, a wildlife veterinarian and flying fox researcher at the University of Adelaide. At first a few early birds take to the skies, he says, then more and more, "diving, swooping, flapping". "As the night sky darkens, steadily the full camp take to the air – a mass of circling, squawking bats all eager to start foraging after a day of rest."

For many festivalgoers, the nightly fly-out ritual is their first time seeing the animals, also called megabats, up close. Boardman runs a "bat tent" near one of the main stages, kitted out with displays, videos and binoculars to educate visitors and address misconceptions about the flying foxes. "They are just astonishing animals," he says. "The loveliness of flying foxes, their sheer beauty, astonishing biology, the amazing anatomy – it never ceases to amaze me." Yet misinformation about the animals is rife, from well-meaning parents telling children they use sound waves to navigate (they don’t), to more sinister notions including that the animals are "pests" that "don’t belong here". "They came of their own volition," Boardman says. Grey-headed flying foxes first arrived in Adelaide in 2010, establishing a permanent camp on First Creek, in parklands just north of the CBD, where they have increased in number from 1,000 to about 50,000 today.

Flying foxes are nomadic, capable of travelling up to 50km at night in search of food resources such as flowering gums, figs and fruit trees. Tim Pearson, a wildlife ecologist who specialises in flying fox behaviour and communication, says the "double whammy" of destroying native forests while providing alternative food sources in farms and residential areas creates the potential for human-bat conflict and harassment, identified as a threat in recovery plans for endangered spectacled flying foxes and vulnerable grey-headed flying foxes. Populations of both species have declined in recent decades, although assessing their current status has become more challenging since the national flying fox monitoring program concluded in 2022. "The Australian attitude towards wildlife has always been positive, providing it doesn’t inconvenience you," Pearson says. Unfortunately for flying foxes, in their case it often does.

Things have been getting better, Pearson says, but flare-ups still occur when practical concerns – about noise, the animals’ impact on fruit growers, power outages or potential disease threats – are reported in breathless terms by the media. Efforts to disperse the bats are generally counterproductive and attempts to promote empathy and coexistence have not worked. Scientists now think "normalising" flying foxes might be a way forward, depicting them as a natural part of Australian wildlife in art, photography, books, community events and education. Despite their often visible and audible presence in cities and towns, representations of flying foxes in mainstream media and popular culture remain scarce and largely negative, according to the paper published in Australian Zoologist. Pearson, a co-author of the paper, works with tame education flying foxes at a wildlife park. Once people see these cute, furry animals up close, they realise they are "curious, gentle, intelligent" with individual personalities, he says.

Doug Gimesy, a wildlife and conservation photojournalist, says bats – flying foxes and microbats – make up nearly 20% of all mammals, but "don’t get 20% of the air time". "As a group, they’re often ignored, under-appreciated and misunderstood," he says. "At worst they’re vilified and face a constant battle of disinformation, hate speech and are even persecuted." Gimesy began photographing flying foxes in 2016 and has since spent more than 160 days in the field, taking thousands of images that document every aspect of their lives. Through his award-winning photographs and children’s book, Life Upside Down, Gimesy is hoping to show people how magnificent the animals are, "to get people to engage and ask questions and understand". Two images have been important to capture and share, he says. In one, a flying fox pokes its pink tongue into a eucalyptus blossom – because people don’t realise what important pollinators they are, he says.

In the other, a pup clings to its mum as it breastfeeds in mid-flight, which usually triggers an emotional response. It’s the realization "they carry their young in flight, and they’re flying mammals". The paper says shifting attitudes towards species such as sharks and crocodiles, once subject to widespread persecution, offer optimism that contentious issues between flying foxes and people can be managed without maligning them as a species. In Fisher reserve, in the inner Melbourne suburb of North Fitzroy, children play on the green grass as an oversized flying fox takes wing with a magpie, a squirrel glider and pink paper planes against a purple sky. The colourful mural, by Alex Sugar, is one of several depicting flying foxes alongside other Australian wildlife and quirky elements. Sugar is fond of the bats, and they became a recurrent feature in his work after their nightly flyout over the Yarra River drew his attention. "We need to highlight them more in everyday culture and the issues that they’re going through as well with their current habitat," he says.