Why Sydney’s back as a bat hang out

Holy bats, man! Sydney’s population of caped crusaders are back - and it’s the city’s selection of fine dining that’s keeping them here.

Holy bats, man! Sydney’s population of caped crusaders are back — and it’s the city’s selection of fine dining that’s keeping them here.

We’re talking bats — which are again filling the night skies of the Harbour City after taking a detour to the west of the state over winter in search of greener pastures.

Normally the flying mammals head north in winter, and back south in summer, says WIRES expert Storm Stanford, but they’ve changed things up in recent years – and it’s all in the search for superior grub.

With recent sightings in Centennial Park — where a steady camp of about 20,000 bats reside — and The Domain, flying-fox co-ordinator for the wildlife rescue group suggested that they may be swooping upon Sydney due to more food availability.

“(Bats are) nomadic, but they follow their food,” she said, adding that food supplies must be “adequate” or at least “not awful”.

Bats, which can eat their own weight in insects each night, are also “sugar junkies”, says Ms Stanford, as they like to chow down on lots of different fruit and nectar, including native figs.

Greater Sydney Parkland’s Senior Manager, Environment and Sustainability David Kirkland, said that Centenniel Park is a consistently popular area for bats, with the coast nearby, and a variety of plants that provide nectar available.

Fruit Bats foraging in the Domain in Sydney’s CBD. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Coming up to “netting season” — where people typically cover their fruit trees with nets to protect them from pests — Ms Stanford said she was concerned about the welfare of bats.

“Once they start running out of food they will forage in backyards for commercial figs and apples and whatever else people are growing in their backyards: they’re just hungry,” she said.

She urged people to tie their nets tightly to the trees and ensure that their netting is smaller than 5x5mm, and to reach out to WIRES if a bat does become caught so as not to risk any bites or injuries.

Citizen science project Bats in Backyards recorded 95,996 bat calls last summer through 110 participants, who set up sound recording devices provided by the project in their land to track bat diversity and their association with different habitats.

The most commonly recorded species was the Gould’s wattled bat, which was recorded at 96 of the 108 sites participating in Bats in Backyards.

Flying foxes hang in a tree in the Centennial Park fruit bat colony at dusk. Picture; Max Mason-Hubers

Despite the large number of calls recorded, many bats in NSW are under threat according to the Bats in Backyard project, with habitat loss, climate change and human activities being the biggest factors.

In fact, more than half of the species found in NSW are threatened or thought to be extinct, with 18 out of 34 bat species listed.

WIRES relies on the public to reach out when they come across bats doing it tough so they — and their team of 4000 volunteers across the state — can help them get back in the air.

Ms Stanford recalled an incident a few weeks ago where a hailstorm swept through and killed about 20 adult bats in a Gundegai rescue camp

“We had fractured arms and really severe head injuries,” she said.

“We were really fortunate that the carers out there were willing to go pick up any of the surviving animals and actually triage them, get them to Sydney, and then we could take them to a vet and do some of the work for them, but it was a very rough thing for them,” she said.

If you see an injured bat, Ms Stanford urged people not to touch them, as bat saliva can transmit the lyssavirus.

People can simply call WIRES on 1300 094 737 instead to avoid causing injury to both themselves and the bat.