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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/australia-flying-foxes-relocation-biodiversity/>
"Surrounded by vast sugarcane farms, pristine rainforest, empty beaches and
lush waterfalls, Cameron Bates’ new home of Ingham, a town in northern
Australia, was a welcome breath of fresh air after the 16 years he’d spent
living and working in Jakarta, Indonesia.
In 2019, Bates moved into an apartment in the center of Ingham, overlooking the
town’s main Rotary Park and just minutes away from the community’s beloved
Botanical Gardens, war memorial and adjacent green spaces. But these were also
all locations that the town’s population of flying foxes, members of the fruit
bat family, had come to call home.
While Ingham’s flying foxes had taken up residence there for at least the
previous decade, the colony was growing thanks to four different sub-species
coming together to roost, resulting in a population so massive that at one
point it was over 500,000. These figures far outnumbered the local human
population of less than 5,000.
At dusk, Bates would marvel at a nightly event he quickly became accustomed to:
Thousands of the native bats awakening for the evening and leaving the safety
of their roost to forage for fruit and nectar before returning at dawn.
The creatures would transform the night sky, their black silhouettes dancing
across the sunset as their shrill cries echoed across town. Little did Bates
realize that this natural phenomenon would come to consume his professional
life, and life in his new home."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
