DOZENS OF BLACK, wide-open eyes are staring down at us, curious and intelligent, as ears twitch and bodies hang upside-down. “This is their second chance at life,” Tamsyn Hogarth says quietly of this batch of grey-headed flying-fox pups orphaned in a starvation crisis facing the species during its 2023–24 breeding season along Australia’a south-east coast. Wildlife carer Tamsyn is head of the Melbourne-based Fly By Night Bat Clinic, and these pups in her care are just a few of the many hundreds of orphans left vulnerable by a wildlife crisis that has astounded Australia’s bat rescue and carer community.
When I visited her in February 2024, Tamsyn was caring for 86 pups and the number was climbing. “It all began to unfold,” she says, “in September 2023 in south-eastern Queensland and northern New South Wales. We had reports of large numbers of females experiencing miscarriages and premature births – an evolutionary event that occurs when food is scarce and the adult is unable to sustain both her own life and that of her baby.” This was soon followed by observations in Victoria of pups dropping from the sky, too undernourished to be able to hold on to their mums (and their mums probably too weak to do much in response). Rescuers and carers were inundated with calls for help. As we speak, there are 440 in care, with many more coming in every day. According to the carers, a conservative estimate of the deaths so far is 1500. “We have never seen anything like this event,” Tamsyn says. “It’s been impossible to keep up with just how many have died.”
The species begins mating January–April each year, when large camps form at established sites. Females give birth October–December to a single young that’s carried by its mother for 4–5 weeks. The females lactate for 3–4 months, meaning the pup is dependent for that period.
