page_title: Grey-headed flying fox
section_title: Wildlife rescue
hierarchical_section_title: Grey-headed flying fox / Conservation / Wildlife rescue
caption_attribution_description: English: A crib full of 2‒3 week old baby grey-headed flying-foxes in care of Wildcare Australia at The Bat Hospital. Русский: Детеныши (2‒3 недели) сероголовой летучей лисицы в яслях.
context_page_description: The grey-headed flying fox is a megabat native to Australia. The species shares mainland Australia with three other members of the genus Pteropus: the little red P. scapulatus, spectacled P. conspicillatus, and the black P. alecto.
  The grey-headed flying fox is endemic to the south-eastern forested areas of Australia, principally east of the Great Dividing Range. Its range extends approximately from Bundaberg in Queensland to Geelong in Victoria, with outlying colonies in Ingham and Finch Hatton in the north, and in Adelaide in the south. In the southern parts of its range it occupies more extreme latitudes than any other Pteropus species.
  As of 2008 the species is listed as "Vulnerable" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
context_section_description: Bat caregivers are not only specially trained in techniques to rescue and rehabilitate bats, but they are also vaccinated against rabies. Although the chance of contracting the rabies-like Australian bat lyssavirus is extremely small, bat caregivers are inoculated for their own protection.
  Flying foxes often come to the attention of Australian wildlife care and rescue organisations, such as Wildcare Australia, ONARR, Wildlife Carers Darling Downs, Bat Care, Bat Rescue, F.A.W.N.A. (NSW) Inc., Wildlife ARC, Northern Rivers Wildlife Carers, Northern Tablelands Wildlife Carers, Hunter Wildlife Rescue, Wildlife Aid, Tweed Valley Wildlife Carers, Wildlife Rescue South Coast, WIRES, and Wildlife Victoria when reported as injured, sick, orphaned, or abandoned. A very high proportion of adult flying fox injuries are caused by entanglement in barbed wire fences or backyard fruit tree netting, both of which can result in very serious injuries and a slow, agonising death for the animal if not rescued quickly. More recently wildlife advocacy groups such the Victorian Advocates for Animals has used the commercial development of a range of wildlife safe fruit tree netting products to push for regulations to make it illegal to install wildlife unsafe nets on backyard fruit trees. These new products have as their chief characteristic small apertures / holes of 5mm x 5mm or less. Flying foxes are able to climb across the netting without being entangled. It is hoped the uptake of wildlife safe netting products will see a marked decline in flying fox entanglements across time and subsequent reduction in public risk and the burden on wildlife rescue and rehabilitation volunteers.  An emerging key threatening process to threatened flying-fox populations is the increasing numbers of days when temperatures exceed 41 °C, causing mass mortalities in flying-fox camps throughout their range along Australia's eastern seaboard.
  Baby flying foxes usually come into care after having been separated from their mothers. Babies are often orphaned during four to six weeks of age, when they inadvertently fall off their mothers during flight, often due to disease or tick paralysis (their own and/or that of the mother). When they are older, orphans usually come into care because of maternal death from power line electrocution or barbed wire entanglement. A rare, but apparent natural, occurrence of mass abandonment can lead to the rescue of hundreds of babies at one time. The latter most recently occurred in November 2008 at the Canungra bat camp in South East Queensland, when Wildcare Australia, working closely with the EPA and regional bat care groups, rescued and rehabilitated over 300 baby grey-headed flying foxes. Most babies are in a dehydrated and distressed state by the time they are rescued, and some are infested with maggots if found sick or injured. A young flying fox must be fed every four hours, and then as it develops it is introduced to blossoms and fruit. When the young flying fox is fully weaned around 10 to 12 weeks of age, it goes into a crèche for rehabilitation and eventual release.  The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage licences NSW rehabilitation groups under its Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 and rehabilitation workers to the Code of Practice for Sick, Injured and Orphaned Flying-foxes developed in partnership with NSW Wildlife Council groups and WIRES.
caption: Crib full of abandoned babies rescued by Wildcare Australia in care at The Bat Hospital
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-TZ1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.5.5", "Image DateTime": "2008:12:01 19:50:19", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.4.9", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "244", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "6816", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6479", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/13", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:11:26 06:29:24", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:11:26 06:29:24", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "33/50", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "26/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1360", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "36", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}