ZCZC
BFF-23
HEATWAVE-AUSTRALIA-QUEENSLAND-STATE
Heatwave wipes out one-third of flying foxes in Australia’s Queensland
state
SYDNEY, Dec. 19, 2018 (BSS/Xinhua) – An extreme heatwave in Australia’s
Queensland state has wiped out more than 23,000 spectacled flying foxes, or
about one-third of the species in the country, in an unprecedented mass death
of the fruit bats amid climate change, local media reported on Wednesday.
“These are certainly very serious wildlife die-off events and they occur at
almost biblical scales,” Western Sydney University ecologist Dr. Justin
Welbergen told the ABC news channel.
“The population size of the spectacled flying fox in Australia is estimated
to be about 75,000 individuals, give or take, so for all intents and purpose
that means we have lost close to a third of the entire species in Australia,”
Welbergen said.
The deaths were from bat colonies in the state’s Cairns area, where
temperatures soared above 42 centigrade two days in a row, breaking the
previous record temperature for November by five centigrade, according to the
channel.
It was the first time the bats died from extreme heat in far northern
Australia, where conditions were usually hot and humid but stayed below 40
centigrade, Welbergen said.
“Extreme heat events are increasing in frequency, also in terms of
intensity and duration, and we can expect more extreme temperatures to occur
increasingly frequently further north,” he said.
“A certain proportion of such an extreme event can certainly be
statistically attributed to climate change for sure, ” he added.
There has been an average of one major die-off of flying foxes in excess of
1,000 deaths every year in the country, Welbergen said, with the
environmental impact on the animals obvious since many of them roosted in
urban areas.
Some residents were forced to leave their homes due to the smell from
rotting carcasses of bats that dropped dead from trees in affected areas,
according to the channel.
“These sorts of events really raise concerns around what is happening to
other species, especially wildlife that have more solitary and cryptic
lifestyles,” Welbergen said.
BSS/Xinhua/MSY/1118 hrs