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Article published in Global Bat Net

Posted: 20 Apr 2020 09:31 AM PDT

Contributed by: Melissa Ingala & Ariadna Morales

            Many people are under the impression that all bats carry diseases that could pose threats to humans. This concern has recently increased because a virus hosted by one bat species seems to be a distant relative of SARS-CoV2. There have been many studies suggesting that because of their ability to fly, unique immune systems, and colonial nature, bats are special reservoirs for zoonotic pathogens— organisms that cause disease and are naturally transmitted between animals and humans. However, a recent study showed that when we account for species richness (i.e. the number of species in an evolutionary group), bats are no more likely to transmit zoonotic viruses than other groups of mammals. In other words, it is likely there are many viruses hosted by bats simply because there are many species of bats, not because they are more inherently dangerous to humans than other groups of mammals. Although this may not sound very comforting given that the world is dealing with a deadly virus, killing bats is not the solution to preventing outbreaks of zoonotic diseases.

Can we prevent a future outbreak by reducing bat populations that might host viruses? There is no evidence that bat culls prevent or diminish disease transmission. In fact, we might produce the opposite effect. For example, attempts to reduce vampire bat colonies in Peru resulted in higher rabies transmission in the bats left behind because culls skewed populations towards juveniles (which are more likely to transmit rabies). Similarly, putting bats in peril of extinction may further increase the number of viruses they can host. Some bats considered Near Threatened or Vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had higher viral richness than bats considered of Least Concern. Based on all currently available evidence, killing bats does not have any benefit for disease management. 

Headshot of a striped Keenan’s bat (Gardnerycteris keenani), a South and Central American species that feeds on insects (left). Pallas’s long-tongued bat (Glossophaga soricina), a South and Central American species that feeds on nectar, such as that of the banana flower in the photo (right). Photos by Sherri & Brock Fenton.

Bats provide more benefits to our everyday lives than we can imagine, and decreasing their populations would have rippling effects on agriculture and natural ecosystems. Bats provide millions of dollars in free pest control services all over the world and pollinate many plants cultivated by humans, including tequila agaves, mangos, and durians. Bats can also help us in the fight against global deforestation and climate change by dispersing seeds and helping to regenerate the rainforests. Losing bats would hurt humans more than it could ever protect us, so in order to protect ourselves, we need to realize the value of protecting bats.

So how can we prevent new pathogen spillovers from bats to humans? Part of the answer lies in changing our own behaviors and the ways we interact with the natural world. One way we can change behaviors is by providing people with accurate, consistent information about avoiding contact with disease reservoirs. Since all vertebrates naturally host viruses and bacteria, avoiding situations where pathogens might be amplified or transferred is most important. In the case of hantavirus, a serious respiratory illness transmitted by rodents, disease transmission has been curbed through educational outreach encouraging people to avoid rodent urine and refrain from sweeping in areas with rodent droppings, since sweeping causes viral particles to become airborne. The number of viruses circulating in bat populations may even be influenced by outside factors including many human activities. For example, deforestation and the presence of humans in Western and Central Africa have been linked to the occurrence of fruit bats that tested positive for Ebola virus antibodies. These regions overlap with known Ebola outbreak areas, suggesting that the more humans encroach on bat habitats, the higher the risk for viral spillovers. To prevent the next pandemic, we need to take decisive action to stop encroaching on wild spaces and protect more lands and habitats.  Actions forming and preserving natural and artificial buffers between humans and wildlife will be critical to protecting human health as well as wildlife health.

Flying foxes are dying en masse in Australia’s extreme heat

In three days before Christmas, thousands of the mammals died in 110-degree heat in one Melbourne park.

Dozens of panting, suffocating gray-headed flying foxes clump together in an attempt to survive 110-degree heat in Yarra Bend Park, outside of Melbourne, in late December. Some 4,500 foxes, including many of these seen here, died over three days in the park.

Photograph by Doug Gimesy

By Natasha Daly

PUBLISHED January 7, 2020

The 30,000 gray-headed flying foxes in Yarra Bend Park, just outside the heart of Melbourne, Australia, were having a fairly normal early spring.

In September and October—springtime in Australia and prime birthing season for the 11-inch long megabats—many of the flying foxes had returned to the park from their winter migration

up the coast. Females were birthing pups as normal, says biologist Stephen Brend, who is in charge of monitoring gray-headed flying foxes in Victoria province, including at Yarra Bend Park, which is home to a significant colony of the bats. All was routine.

“And then the horror started,” Brend says. “It got too hot, too quickly.”

Incapable of surviving the extreme, relentless heat that gripped Melbourne in December, the flying foxes were dying. Across three days just before Christmas, when temperatues exceeded 110 degrees Fahrenehit, 4,500 of the park’s gray-headed flying foxes perished—15 percent of the colony’s population.

The tragedy for flying foxes in the park echoes scenes of wildlife suffering across the country and puts a spotlight on the perils of extreme heat, which for some species can be just as deadly as fire. Great and small, fast and slow, Australia’s endemic animals are falling victim to the heatwaves and fires that are ravaging the country at an unprecedented scale. It’s the hottest and driest summer in Australia in recorded history. As the planet warms, large-scale fires are becoming more frequent, and bushfire seasons are getting longer.

For gray-headed flying foxes, which are classified as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the Yarra Bend event is not isolated. “The colony in Adelaide suffered even worse,” says Brend. Several thousand flying fox babies died there from extreme heat between November and January, says Justin Welbergen, associate professor of animal ecology at Western Sydney University and president of the Australasian Bat Society. On January 4, many thousands of flying fox babies died across multiple roosts in and around the Sydney region in New South Wales, where the temperature reached a record-breaking 121 degrees Fahrenheit. Welbergen’s team, which monitors flying fox heat stress conditions, is calculating a final death toll.

This summer’s extreme heat and extreme fires, which have imperiled Australia’s entire eastern coast—prime flying-fox habitat—“risk wiping out the 2019 generation” of newborn bats, Brend says. Some 80 percent of flying fox pups are born in October. They were young and vulnerable when heat waves and wildfires broke out late last year.

Hour by hour in extreme heat

A day in the life of a flying fox in a heatwave is unforgiving. By 5:30 a.m., as dawn breaks, the bats have returned to their trees after spending the night feeding on nectar and fruit. By 8 a.m., Brend says, it’s getting hot in their roosts. The bats fan their wings to keep cool, but they can only do it for so long before they start to get tired, he says. By noon, they’re getting exhausted, and temperatures continue to climb. The bats start to pant, which accelerates dehydration.

At that point, they could fly into the river to get a drink (the Yarra River runs through the middle of the 640-acre park), “but it’s like us running to the shop in the middle of a heat wave,” Brend says. Flying takes energy, and when they’re exhausted and dehydrated, they’ll simply stay put.

Distressed and starting to panic, the bats try to find a cool spot. Mothers will deposit their babies on branches and separate, Brend says, searching for a tree trunk that might be cooler. The bats follow each other—spotting one on a trunk seems to signal to the rest that it’s a refuge. They start to clump together. “It’s like a football scrum of bats,” Brend says. “To the observer, it looks mindless.” The ones who got there first are now surrounded and smothered by dozens of others.

“At that point in time everything has gone wrong,” Brend says. That’s when his team, made up of park staff and volunteers, will step in to try to break up the clumps by spraying them with water, which cools them down and slakes their thirst.

Tragedy on the trees

On December 20th, at the height of the three-day heat event that killed 4,500 flying foxes, “it never got cool,” Brend says. At 9 p.m., the team was out spraying. But it was pitch black, tree limbs were falling, and there are venomous snakes in the brush. “We had to call it off. We couldn’t see. It was 38 degrees [100 degrees Fahrenheit]. It was deeply distressing,” he says. “It was carnage.”

“One falls, and the rest cascade on the ground, crushing and suffocating each other. Dozens if not hundreds of dead or dying bats are at the bottom of the tree,” says Melbourne-based photojournalist Douglas Gimesy, who documented the December rescue efforts. “You’re looking down at them and they’re looking up at you gasping. They’re smothering and heating up. Volunteers will go in and separate out bodies and find some that are still alive. But you’ve got 20 to 30 rescuers and 4,500 bats. It’s like a war zone. It’s sad and distressing and heartbreaking, and you know it will happen again and again and again.”

“Some we get to in time,” says Tamsyn Hogarth, one of the rescuers. “Others die in your hand.” By the third day, on December 20th, the air was thick with “the smell of death,” she says. Hogarth runs Fly By Night, a wildlife shelter in Melbourne dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating, and releasing gray-headed flying foxes. She and other volunteers rescued 255 babies during the extreme heat events in December in Yarra Bend Park. Two dozen volunteers across Victoria province are currently caring for the bats, which range in age from two to 12 weeks old.

Heatwave deaths are normal for the bats—but this is different.

Hot days causing bat deaths are normal in Yarra Bend Park. “We’re always worried about heat events. You’re not going to get through summer without having really hot days,” says Brend.

Last summer, for example, a few hundred bats died, he says.

One study found that between 1994 and 2007, approximately 30,000 gray-headed flying foxes died in extreme heat events in Australia.

But the timing of this year’s extreme heat—right after birthing season—contributed to unusually high mortality. Because the young were still nursing, their mothers’ energy levels were depleted, and all of them—parents and new babies—are more vulnerable, Brend says. The first weekend in December was extremely hot, and it was followed by a succession of hot days all month, culminating in the three-day death event, reaching a peak of 110 degrees Fahrenheit in Yarra Bend on December 20.

“It’s emotional and frightening for the species. And this is happening across their entire range,” Brend says. While Yarra Bend Park hasn’t been hit by fires, much of the flying foxes’ habitat lies directly in the fire zones along Australia’s east coast.

A modern-day passenger pigeon?

A May 2019 national survey estimated that there are around 589,000 gray-headed flying foxes in Australia. Although their numbers are robust now, they face a host of threats, from routine extreme heat events to entanglement in urban infrastructure, such as nets and barbed wire, as well as harassment from residents who see them as pests.

The bats are nomadic. Much of their range is currently in the fire zones. Many travel north in winter, roosting in forests along the coast, which they may find scorched. The “bushfires have destroyed essential foraging resources on unprecedented scales,” says Welbergen. “There is no refuge for them,” says Brend. “It’s not like it’s bad in Melbourne but will be OK in northern New South Wales—it’s not OK anywhere.”

“That can’t go on for too many cycles before the population declines,” Brend says. “I don’t want to be alarmist or dramatic—there are still thousands of these bats—but there’s no reason to be confident anymore.”

“Our worry is we’ll have the new passenger pigeon,” he says, referring to what was once the most abundant bird in North America before being hunted to extinction in the 19th century.

‘Bats need the forest and the forest needs the bats’

Flying foxes play a vital role in the forest. “Their ecological role is as big, nocturnal bees,” Brend says. They carry seeds and pollinate trees, gardening the forest by night. “Bats need the forest and the forest needs the bats,” says Brend.

And it’s still the middle of summer in Australia. “We’ll battle on for our upside down friends,” says Lawrence Pope, a rescuer caring for five orphaned baby bats at home, “but things look very grim.”

“In this horror year, all species are suffering. It’s really frightening,” Brend says. “We’re hot, and they’re hot, and it’s a nightmare.”

Just back from the 49th Annual Symposium of the North American Society for Bat Research in Kalamazoo, Michigan and what a treat it was!

There’s nothing better than being in a room full of passionate, brilliant people, sharing their hard-won knowledge for the benefit of bats around the world. It is, however, much like drinking from a fire-hose, with a new presentation of cutting-edge research every 15 minutes for three days.

Highlights included a photography workshop led by the legendary Brock Fenton & Merlin Tuttle, and up-and-coming Price Sewell.
Rodrigo Medellin presented fascinating work on the second-largest bat in the Americas, the Wooly False Vampire bat, showing that this carnivorous bat requires large, well-preserved forests for its conservation.

We really enjoyed talking to the many undergrads who explained their posters describing results of their fieldwork.

But mostly we were happy to catch up with old friends and make new ones, while discussing the latest efforts to mitigate threats to bats, including WNS, wind turbines, and habitat loss.

On the way back home, we got to wait for a delayed flight with Texas State Mammalogist Jonah Evans, who in addition to leading state efforts to fight WNS, also found time to entertain with his guitar till 1:30 am the previous night in his hotel room. What a good dude!