The colony of about 6000 grey-headed flying foxes at Tatura was the hardest hit, with one wildlife carer estimating between 400 and 500 died in the heatwave between Wednesday, January 7, and Friday, January 9.
In Tocumwal, an estimated 300 died.
At Numurkah, deaths were estimated to number between 200 and 300, however many more were saved thanks to the hard work of volunteers who spent the Thursday night, and all day and well into the night on Friday, spraying water to cool the flying foxes down.
Bohollow Wildlife Shelter Bunbartha shelter operator and rescuer Kirsty Ramadan was one of those on the ground at Numurkah.
Four volunteers, armed with backpack water sprays, as well as spray bottles, spent their time in the main part of the colony along the banks of the Broken Creek.
The grey-headed flying foxes are an endangered species in Australia, with wildlife carers saying they are particularly susceptible to multiple days of extreme temperatures.
Miss Ramadan said only about 50 flying foxes died in the camp on Friday thanks to their efforts.
“We would have lost hundreds if we were not there,” she said.
“I dread to think what the numbers would have been in Numurkah. We could have had a colony collapse.”
Miss Ramadan said when bats suffer from heat stress they typically clump together and will come down the tree and die en masse.
“If we can spray the clumps, it cools them down and they can drink off each other’s fur and they will be okay,” she said.
“We were basically rehydrating them with water.”
Miss Ramadan said, as part of their care for bats, she and other wildlife carers began visiting the Numurkah camp in September and October to get the bats familiar with them walking through.
That meant, in times of extreme heat, the flying foxes would not be scared of them when they visited to help.
“We knew if we can’t be there, the fate of the bats is pretty grim,” she said.
Often, if they are not used to people being nearby, going into a bat colony on extreme heat days to cool them down can do more damage as it can add more stress.
This is what stopped more being done at both Tatura and Tocumwal.
Bohollow Wildlife Shelter Kotupna shelter operator Deb Fowler was also among the volunteers to help at Numurkah.
However, she also saw the first-hand devastation at Tatura.
She said she was alerted on the Thursday night that there were dead flying foxes in Cussen Park in Tatura where the colony was.
By the time she was given permission to go in on the Friday it was too late, and she had to leave again because she didn’t want to do more damage to the bats who were still holding on to life.
Ms Fowler said she had been led to believe that Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) was taking care of this colony and it was why wildlife volunteers had not done anything about it earlier before it was too late.
Ms Fowler now wants DEECA representatives to sit down with wildlife carers and Greater Shepparton City Council staff to form a plan for the next time something like this happens.
Dutch Thunder Wildlife Rescue owner and operator Kylee Donkers, who is based in Koonoomoo, said there was also not much volunteers could do for the flying fox camp in Tocumwal.
“You can spray with backpack sprays, but ours are not used to that and they’d start getting active and moving,” she said.
This in turn would cause more stress for the creatures.
“It was a difficult decision to make,” she said.
Instead, volunteers sprayed distressed animals twice and then monitored them.
If they had not improved in a few hours, they took them into care.
“It was absolutely heartbreaking to deal with,” she said.
A DEECA spokesperson said DEECA had “been working with land managers across the state to support flying fox colonies during extreme heat events”.
DEECA said its approach to managing flying fox heat stress response was focused on human safety being the highest priority, disturbance to flying fox camps being minimised as much as possible and response teams including local knowledge and flying fox behavioural expertise.
DEECA warned flying foxes carry diseases harmful to humans, including rabies, and said people should not touch them in any circumstances.
If people find a flying fox on the ground, they should not touch it and call DEECA on 136 186, an approved wildlife carer, or Wildlife Victoria on 8400 7300.
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