During the Qingming season, cold rain is in the northern hemisphere, while Australia in the southern hemisphere is in late summer. Walking in Australian parks, young men and women dating by the river and children playing in the grass. But as long as you walk a little into the eucalyptus forest, there is a good chance that you will encounter the wild creatures of Tuao!
Full of fruit bats at the Geelong Botanic Gardens, Victoria
Giant bats
Whenever the hot season comes, thousands of bats gather and camp near the river channel to facilitate drinking.
These bat colonies are often referred to as "bat camps," where thousands of bats gather to fly out at night to hunt insects or fruit. Due to their high reproductive capacity and large numbers, the area of the camp is also usually large.
There are three species of bats in Australia, the most famous of which is the grey-headed flying fox, which usually has a wingspan of 1 meter and flies like a group of Dracula, which is very spectacular.
Vegetarian, but deeply misunderstood
In recent years, due to the continuous wildfires in Australia, large areas of bat's habitat have been burned and their populations have been greatly reduced. Of Melbourne's 27,000 bats, around 4,500 die each year from heatwaves or starvation. As a result, these bats are listed as endangered and protected species. When the weather is hot and there is little food and clothing, bats choose to camp in parks in human settlements.
Originally a riverside where residents walked and relaxed, suddenly more than 80,000 fell from the sky,
One after another, hanging upside down on the tree, densely packed and layered, it looks like a bat's nest.
The town of Nova also welcomed tens of thousands of bats last year, using the city as a base on the way to the breeding ground. In the sunset, swarms of bats take off, like a horror movie plot staged on the spot, and it turns out that the scene of bats flying out in vampire movies is based on reality.
Bats are highly social animals that like to twitter and communicate with each other when they get together. When tens of thousands of bats are chatting at the same time, the scene is really noisy. You can hear the call from far away, and when you get closer, you can smell the strong stench of bats.
However, scientific research has found that bats are hosts of a variety of deadly viruses, and people are prone to serious diseases after being exposed to them.
After 2020, these large numbers of bats have raised concerns among Australians that they are likely to transmit more diseases to people. Refer to the real case: Ms. Susie, who lives in the suburbs of Melbourne, got up early in the morning to open the door and suddenly saw a huge bat hanging upside down on a drying rack in her garden, with dark wings and a hairy head, and its size was almost catching up with a small monkey, and she was staring at her with big eyes of water spirits. The scene startled her, and finally called animal protection organizations to "please leave" the bat from the yard.
Good morning, my dear neighbor!
Close contact with wild bats is very dangerous, and it is possible to get rabies or other deadly viruses from bites.
Some citizens also reported that they often saw bat carcasses in urban areas, and they were worried that children would touch bats with their bare hands.
Some people have been proposing to kill or drive away bats, but scholars and experts have opposed it. Ecological experts support that as long as people don't approach and touch bats, nothing will happen.
Bats are a very important part of the local forest ecosystem, they are known for their fruits, pollen. Nectar feeds on seeds and pollen, and like hornbills in the rainforest, they eat large amounts of fruit and carry them beyond their wider range. For areas burned by wildfires, bat droppings can bring new seeds and nutrients. They are indispensable for vegetation restoration and forest development.
And fruit bat swarms don't settle in one place, they often travel back and forth between dozens of camps, affecting people for a very short period of time each year.
How humans and animals live in harmony
Many animals have lost their habitat in human expansion and natural disasters, tolerate human encroachment on their homes and struggle to adapt to cities, but it seems that humans have a hard time accepting being neighbors with animals.
In order to protect animals and ourselves, we should call on everyone to keep their distance from wild animals, do not disturb and do not interfere.
Maybe in the future, bats will not have to run to the drying rack of people to rest.