By Ben Dessen, Hills Wildlife Sanctuary
There is an escalating crisis unfolding for our beautiful flying foxes! A mass starvation event is taking place with a critical shortage in flowering native plants which usually provide essential food for our bats at this time of year.
Thousands of flying foxes are currently impacted with dozens coming into care each day emaciated and starving. Many mothers are aborting their newborn babies as they don’t have the energy to feed or care for them.
In order to support a number of other rescue groups who are inundated, the Hills Wildlife Sanctuary has offered to take in more than 50 flying foxes this week alone!
Each individual flying fox requires 500g of fruit to eat per night. We need to source up to 200kg of fruit per week just to keep these bats fed and help them to recover and put weight back on.
We desperately need:
– FUNDS. On top of fruit, the bats also require a specialised High Protein Supplement which costs $137 per 5kg bag. We will be going through at least one of these bags per week. If anyone is in a position to make a donation to sponsor the costs of purchasing this essential food, we would be incredibly grateful. Tax-deductible donations can be made via our website.
– PLEASE SHARE. Our entire volunteer team would be incredibly grateful of you could please share this post far and wide. Our sanctuary has been built by and continues to run off generous support from the community. We don’t receive any Government funding or support for our work and would be grateful for any donated fruit or funds to support our team through this challenging time.
Editors Update: Ben’s earlier social media post requested Fruit Donations. It was pleasing to read that Harris Farm and local residents/farms stepped up to help cover this request. Harris Farm is now donating over 200kg of fruit per month to help with this crises. Well done to everyone. The donation of money is now their top priority to cover the ongoing costs of vetinerary bills. To donate, go to their website https://www.hillswildlifesanctuary.org/donate
On behalf of all our volunteers and the beautiful bats, thank you for your kind support
