Damage to the delicate membrane of the flying foxes wing (Image: Spencer Shaw)
by Spencer Shaw
You may have heard all of this before (but for those of you who haven’t) Flying Foxes and barbed wire fences do not play well together. In fact barbed isn’t very nice to the majority of our native fauna – lots of delicate thin skin and membranes that get tangled on those unforgiving galvanized twists of death and destruction (could never accuse me of understatement)!
This morning I was in the right time at the right place to help a Little Red Flying Fox (Pteropus scapulatus) stuck on a barbed wire fence just down the road from our place. The fence line was on a ridge just up from a dam and gullies either side. This little female was flying low and found herself hooked and then tangled on the top wire and had probably been there for at least a few hours. Luckily for her, two of the best Fauna Rescue people live just around the corner and I covered her with my t-shirt for shade and protection, contacted them and within 15 mins the rescue team of Carmel and Ridley were on site and untangling her from the fence.
What to do if you find a Flying Fox on a fence:
- Contact a trained Wildlife Carer immediately, if you don’t have contact details for a local wildlife care service on your phone, do so now!
- They will advise in how, if you can assist
- Do not, and this is the most important bit, Do not try to touch or handle the Flying Fox. If it accidentally bites you (as a result of your assistance), not only will you have to worry about being infected with Australian Bat Lyssavirus (until the tests come back), your valiant efforts to save the Flying Fox will be in vain as the only way they can test for infection in the bat is to kill them first! Do not touch the Flying Fox!!!
- If you can’t contact anyone immediately, do what I did and place t-shirt or other light fabric over the fence to protect and calm the flying fox and then contact Wildlife carers.
Stopping wildlife getting tangled on barbed wire:
- Yes tensioned barbed wire fences are great for containing rambunctious cattle , but a top plain wire can work in many cases and if not go electric.
- Many fences, such as the one in question this morning are merely a boundary fence, with no cattle on the property, replace the top wire with plain.
- Cover the top barbed wire in gullies, near dams, creeks, ridges etc (basically low flight paths) with split poly pip or similar
More info:
Red Flying Fox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_red_flying_fox
BAT RESCUE Inc. Hotline: (07) 5441 6200 or – 0498 313 068 24 hrs and web site: http://www.batrescue.org.au/website/
Wildlife Friendly Fencing: http://www.wildlifefriendlyfencing.com/WFF/Home.html
