Posted on 01/08/2018 10:46:43 AM PST by Red Badger
THOUSANDS of flying foxes died in an Australian heatwave so severe it has melted tarmac.
The animals fell from the trees as they were boiled alive in temperatures exceeding 40C in Campbelltown in New South Wales.
Animal welfare volunteers battled to save the lives of the hundreds of babies and some adults in distress but the death toll is believed to be in the thousands.
A spokesman from the charity Help Save the Wildlife and Bushlands in Campbelltown said: "The efforts of our volunteers yesterday was both heroic and heartbreaking.
"In extremely trying conditions they worked tirelessly to provide sub-cutaneous fluids to the pups that could be reached and many lives were saved.
"But sadly many lives were lost too.
"Hundreds of mainly young flying-foxes were lost to the heat yesterday and the final count could run to thousands."
The heatwave in three states brought temperatures strong enough to melt the bitumen on a highway and sparked bushfires that destroyed buildings and threatened lives.
(Excerpt) Read more at thesun.co.uk ...
The typical tabloid writer’s attention grabbing headline..................
40 degrees C?
104. It gets hotter than that in Phoenix on some mornings.
I’d say something/someone else killed them.
Not everyone adores them.
As God as my witness, I thought flying foxes could fly
Well our Tucson bats are clever enough to stay in the shade during the day and only come out in the evening. :^)
https://southernarizonaguide.com/bats-under-the-bridge-who-knew/
I presume the Phoenix ones are just as clever.
“Reminiscent of back in the day when it was basically wilderness, used to take the gals grunion running on the Strand in Coronado”
Remember the Grunion runs.
There still is wilderness. Evey year I drive my ‘66 Land Cruiser to the border of Nevada and Utah north of I-80, and 4 wheel it without maps or GPS to the border of California. The only pavement I touch in that ziggy zaggy 600 miles crossing a half dozen major mountain ranges is the road from Wells to Jackpot, the road from Elko to Owyhee, and the road from Winnemucca to Boise, maybe a little bit of the Taylor Canyon road, and maybe the road from Fernley to Gerlach. Except crossing those few highways, I generally don’t see other people almost the entire way.
OMG I had forgotten all about them. LOL!
Thanks Red Badger. Frying foxes ping.
The animal lovers trying to save them don’t live near enough to them to experience the down-side:
Living with Fruit Bats:
In recent years the state government has given the local councils the ability to decide for themselves if it make sense to try to move bat colonies as residents complain.
Many communities are tired of homes and cars being covered with bat faeces, of the noise and the smell.
Councils have tried to move them, with mixed success.
On the Gold Coast, residents have used air horns to shift bats and suggested the Gold Coast City Council cull some of the 200,000 bats remaining in the city.
Charter Towers used car horns and helicopters in December 2013 to shift 80,000 bats, but by November 2014, Townsville was complaining their “bat plague” was Charters Towers’ bats.
“It is easy to disperse bats,” Ms Wimberley said.
“But you don’t know where they are going to go.
“They are going to go into someone’s backyard and it is going to be someone else’s problem.”
Tradition isn’t what it used to be, eh?
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