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A cup of tea with Louise Saunders

Posted on August 17, 2014 by Samantha Wheeler

 

Louise saundersA few weeks ago, Louise Saunders was kind enough to spend the afternoon with me to talk about bats. With my new story Spud & Charli, about bats and Hendra virus, due out in September, I wanted to make sure I had my facts right. Louise has been a bat carer for over 21 years, and was so impassioned by bats, that she founded Bat Conservation and Rescue Qld. http://bats.org.au

So, Louise, what happened 21 years ago that turned you from successful artist to bat carer?

I went on a Batty Bat Cruise around Indooroopilly Island and fell in love with the bats. When the organisers said they were looking for more bat carers, I offered to raise one. One soon turned into many…

But, aren’t you scared of catching a deadly disease – like Lyssavirus?

BatNo. As carers, we are trained to handle bats properly, and we always take the right precautions. I have been bitten by an infected bat, but because I am vaccinated, I am still okay.

What message would you most like people to receive about bats?

Don’t be afraid of bats. We can live with bats in close proximity without getting sick as long as we don’t touch them. A bat found alone needs help. Report sick or injured bats, don’t touch them, and stay safe.

Louise’s passion and knowledge about bats is inspiring. Here are just some of the amazing batty tit bits she shared with me:

  • One of people’s biggest complaint about bats are their smell. But this comes from their pheromones, not from their poo. The more you stir up a bat colony, the more they will release their pheromones, and the more they will smell. The same goes for noise. The more you stir bats up, the noisier they will become. So, leave bats alone.
  • Bats are capable of pollinating up to 60,000 trees in one night, flying over 100km looking for food. The pollen from flowering Eucalypts and other native trees rubs off on their faces when they feed on the sweet nectar. This pollen is taken to the next tree they visit, spreading the genetics across many kilometres. So, bats are making forests while we sleep.
  • If bats are annoying you, check out the trees growing in your backyard. Introduced trees like Cocos palms produce a lot of sugary fruit, attracting bats to feed in your yard instead of on the native trees. The palm fruit isn’t good for the bats, and the poo it creates is sticky and smelly. Removal of these trees might solve your problem.
  • Bats not only spread pollen, but they also spread fruit. This is because of their raider/resident behaviour. The “resident” bat is the bat who “owns” the food tree, and will eat while hanging on the tree. The seeds drop close to the tree, which is not an ideal place for a new sapling. However, young “raider” bats flying through the area will duck in to the tree, steal a fruit, and fly away with it. This is an effective way to spread the seed of native trees kilometres away from the mother plant, where, if the conditions are right, they will germinate and grow into new trees.
  • The roosting habitat of the bats is their home. Bat colonies are often formed in Melaleuca wetland areas where the micro climate is perfect to keep them healthy. However, if we remove these vulnerable wetlands (and we do), the bats look for other less suitable places to roost. These may be in parks or schools or your backyard. These roosts are unsuitable, for us and for the bats. They have no way of keeping cool in these new roosts, and can often die in their thousands when the temperature soars over 43 degrees. So the trick is to leave the natural roosts alone.

Fllying batHere is what Louise had to say when she was interviewed by Sixty Minutes after their segment on Lyssavirus. http://www.batsrule.org.au/batsrule-helpsavewildlife/2014/3/9/extra-minutes-australian-rabies-interview-with-louise-saunders-bat-conservation-and-rescue

Bats are incredible animals, and according to Louise, probably the most important wildlife in Australia. After 34 million years of evolution, they have hardly changed, and the worst thing we can be is ignorant. Learn more about bats, and be amazed!

Here are some websites I found useful:

Batty Boat cruises, through Wildlife Queensland

Bat Conservation & Rescue QLD

All About Bats

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thanks to our teachers

Posted on November 28, 2013 by Samantha Wheeler

Can anyone make a difference?

I’ve been privileged these last few weeks to speak in some local schools about koala conservation while talking about my book Smooch & Rose. What a delight it has been! I have attended koala consevation meetings and read articles about the rapidly falling numbers of koalas in SE Queensland, and I often find myself in a state of despair about the fate of our furry little friend. But after my recent school visits, a tiny ray of hope has broken through the gloom.

Welcome sign from Redlands State SchoolNot only have the students I’ve visited been well informed and enthusiastic about wildlife conservation, they are encouraged to embrace this passion by their wonderful teachers. When I ask students about what is killing our koalas, they know the answer. Habitat destruction, disease, dog attacks and car fatalities. Over 16,000 koalas have been killed in the last few years, which is way too many. Students as young as seven have great ideas about how to prevent these unnecessary deaths and they are confident and optimistic with their views.

This confidence comes from great teaching.

So thanks to the teachers and parents of our next generation. Thanks to you, I am starting to feel hopeful that our koala may have a future. If the students I’ve met these last few weeks are any indication, standing up for Australia’s favourite icon will be second nature to them. They haven’t lost their way about what is important and as one boy put it, ‘we need koalas because they make us happy’. Yes they do. Like many things in nature, koalas can’t be quantified in dollar terms or by a list of their useful products. Koalas make us happy and our children’s children need to have them in their lives.

When I wrote Smooch & Rose, I hoped that the message ‘anyone can make a difference’ would stick. I’m starting to see it will. I just hope it won’t be too late.

What can you do to help?

Koalas should be protected.

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How many koalas crossed the road?

Posted on July 4, 2013 by Samantha Wheeler

One koala, two koalas, three koalas, four.
Five koalas, six koalas, seven koalas … what ….
None? Surely not?

Koala on branch

Image credit:123RS.

Not far from my place a busy road regularly claims the lives of our vulnerable koalas. In fact, between 1997 and 2008, over 2000 koalas were hit by vehicles on Redlands roads.

Last year I noticed a big green bridge being built.

Yahoo! A wildlife crossing! So what if the poles looked a little slippery and steep? Someone must have done the research and decided koalas liked these crossings – right?

Wrong!

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Annual General Meeting of the Koala Action Group of Redland Bay, where guest speaker Cath Dexter, Senior Research Ecologist from the SEQ Koala Road Mitigation Project, spoke about her work researching the movement patterns of wild koalas, including the crossings that koalas make over some of the busiest roads in SE Queensland.

You have to admire the tenacity of Cath and her crew. They tackled radio collars that fell off, inaccurate recordings, vandals, koalas that insisted on crossing the same road over and over again, drought, fire, flood and sick koalas that just plain died.

But, after 3 years, their patience paid off. They had substantial tracking and photo evidence to make some definite statements about the way in which koalas moved around busy roads. No surprises there. Young male koalas crossed busy roads the most, and more frequently in the mating season. They crossed whenever they felt like it, not just in the middle of the night. They liked the trees in the median strips too and often visited these as feed trees, not just passing through.

Koala crossing

Fauna overpass on the busy road near my house. Image credit: Samantha Wheeler.

Then Cath talked about monitoring some “retro-fitted” wildlife crossings. These included tunnels and the fancy new over-pass near my place. She showed us some great footage of koalas, possums, snakes, kangaroos, and echidnas crossing under the roads in the modified drainage pipes.

It was so exciting to think these animals had their lives spared by these safe crossings. But not all roads can have tunnels built under them once they are constructed. So overpasses are more practical for existing roads. So the big question was … how many of the twenty four koalas living in my area had crossed over the shiny new Mains Road funded fauna overpass? Ten? Twenty? Three? All twenty four? We held our breath. Leant forward. Listened …

Cath quietly explained that no koalas had been seen crossing the new bridge. None!

Sponsored-Koala-research-Camera-276x207[1]

Photo of a koala using a modified underpass to cross under the road. Image credit: Griffith University.

Any possums? None. How could this be? As far as Cath knew the bridge prototype had not been tested as the “best practice” crossing for wildlife such as koalas before installation. The company that had built the bridge had not consulted Cath and her team before building it. Surely the prototype had been tested at a place like Australia Zoo with captive koalas before installation. Nope. My heart sank. So no koalas used the crossing? Nope. Why? Because there was no tree line run up to the crossing? Because the poles were too thick, too slippery? Cath didn’t know, but the lack of research into the crossing seemed heart breaking. It felt like it was all just a big political scam, made to look like the Government was doing the right thing for the koalas, made to make me and you feel good, but not really helping koalas? Surely not?

Overpass near Brunswick Heads

Overpass near Brunswick Heads. Image credit: Samantha Wheeler.

An audience member raised her hand. She was a koala ambulance driver with the daunting task of picking up injured koalas from the side of the road. She pointed out that the fencing either side of the overpass was helping reduce deaths. That was a relief. And the tunnels were undoubtedly working. I’d gotten goose bumps myself seeing the fat bottom of a koala waddling past the camera in a tunnel in a picture shown in Cath’s talk. Maybe the overpass just needed time? Maybe there were better designs? Cath said she doubted the new Government would spend any more money on overpasses or even if they’d spend any money on the upkeep of this one.

I came away feeling ashamed to think we were the kind of public who could be fooled into thinking a few green poles over a busy road were enough. Surely any new road or new developments should have safe wildlife crossings factored into the cost of construction? And the type of crossing that works best should be researched and prototyped? Cath’s evidence seems to point towards modified tunnels, but what about wide, treed bridges like the ones pictured here? If we fenced either side of the road to channel the wildlife towards these safe crossings, we really could save the lives of our vulnerable wildlife. Wouldn’t that be a better option? Token bridges shouldn’t be enough to keep us quiet. We want real solutions that help save the lives of real animals.

Further reading

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