by Carla Caruso

The chair of a bat rescue organisation is incensed that organisers continue to stage WOMADelaide beneath the bat colony in Botanic Park (Park 11) — particularly during a heatwave.

Sue Westover, who founded Bat Rescue SA, shared information on her organisation’s Facebook page about walking paths through the flying-fox camps in Melbourne, in contrast, being closed for the safety of the animals this long weekend.

“This is how Melbourne treats their bat colony in the heat – the correct and respectful way,” Sue wrote.

“But Adelaide, expecting 40 degrees this weekend, just holds a festival with [a major] stage directly under the colony and buys bat bins for their [immunised] staff to dispose of the bodies – and puts it all over the media, advertising their bat bins, like it’s something to be proud of.

“Hats off to Melbourne for respecting a vulnerable species.”

WOMADelaide – an annual festival of music, arts, and dance – is being held at Botanic Park / Tainmuntilla (Park 11) from March 8-11. Maximum temperatures are predicted to range from 37C to 40C throughout the event.

The bats moved into the Botanic Garden side of Park 11 in about 2010, following habitat loss in the eastern states.

Numbers in the colony can now reach up to 55,000, with the animals foraging across the metropolitan area at night.

When we spoke to Sue about the issue, she’d just been helping rescue a juvenile bat that’d been caught in a fishing line up a tree in Lockleys – with hooks in its mouth and a wing. The line was believed to have been thrown up there by kids.

On WOMADelaide, Sue said, along with the noise from the setup and pack-down stressing the animals, the heat was a major concern.

When there are consecutive days of heat, the problem is the bats don’t get the chance to cool down overnight.

“Basically, they dehydrate. Hopefully most of the bats are juveniles now [with most born in September] and they can get over to the river.

“But unfortunately, we’ve still got mums in the colony, carrying babies. So, if it gets really hot and those mums don’t get any respite with their babies on them, the mums overheat and drop down dead.”

In extreme heat, Sue said the creatures make the mistake of grouping together.

“They’re highly intelligent, but they’re not intelligent when it comes to cooling down. So, when it’s hot, they all want to get close to the trunk of a tree because that’s the coolest spot.

“So, they all clump in together and then they overheat even more. Then they start dropping to the ground.

“When we are doing a normal heat stress event, we have to be very careful. We’ve got to walk on the outskirts of the colony. If we go into the middle of the colony, the bats go up in flight in fright, and that uses up more of their reserves.

“So, if you think of a major heat stress event, and you’ve got heaps of people walking around, the bats will come down lower as well. And if those bats are coming halfway down to the trunks and the public are walking through, the bats will just go up again in the air [in fright, which is a worry].

“I think it’s only one or two sprinklers that [the organisers] can put on. We’ve just got to hope that that they can cover enough.”

Sue believes the festival would be better located elsewhere.

“What [the organisers] say is, ‘Oh, we were here before the bats,’ and yes, they were. But WOMADelaide was a lot smaller then, and WOMADelaide has outgrown the area; that’s the problem. There are just too many people.

“We’re not ‘anti’ the festival at all, but we just think it would be better in a bigger area, away from the bats – better for [the organisers] and less costly for them.

“They’ve had to put up shade sails to stop the bats pooing all over the stage and now they’ve put dead bat bins in for trained staff to use.”

A few volunteers from another animal organisation – Fauna Rescue SA – will also be on hand at the festival, in an education tent.

The City of Adelaide posted on its page too, warning about the mammals experiencing severe heat stress over the long weekend, “which can even result in death”.

“If you encounter a grey-headed flying fox or bat in the Park Lands, please keep your distance and do not attempt to touch them,” the council says.

“These animals are under extreme stress and may be carrying Lyssavirus and may become aggressive to protect their young.

“If scratched or bitten, seek urgent medical attention. Find out more about our bats and what to do if you find a bat in distress: https://brnw.ch/21wHGaB.”

Meanwhile, Bat Rescue SA is always on the lookout for volunteers. It’s been the organisation’s “busiest year yet”, with more than 300 rescues since July 1 last year – double what they did last financial year. The organisation also relies solely on donations to run.

In other news, Sue had a special visitor at her home-based bat creche last month: Matchbox 20 lead guitarist Kyle Cook and his partner, Tina, who’s also a wildlife rescuer.

The pair were in town as the US rock band were doing a concert at the Entertainment Centre.

Sue didn’t know what to expect of the duo but found they were “just lovely people, down-to-earth”.

To thank Sue for allowing them to see her facility, Kyle gifted her free tickets to the concert, eight rows from the front.