There are many ways you can help!

• Report all wildlife electrocuted on powerlines (note the pole numbers), ask your local electricity company to prune large flowering native trees growing near cables, support underground cabling and cable bundling
• Reduce barbed wire fencing
• Net fruit trees correctly, or use alternative wildlife friendly crop protection methods (see below)
  
• Plant Flying-fox friendly native trees in your garden (see suggested list below)
• Remove cocos palms
  
• Put a microbat nesting box up in a tree (more information under 'Microbat Boxes' in the Rescue & Rehab section of this website or see Hollow Log Homes in our weblinks section)
  
• Report all sightings of bats in distress to your local wildlife group, RSPCA or Parks & Wildlife office.
• Support Bat Rescue Inc. financially by sponsoring a bat in care, making a donation to assist with caring costs or becoming a Support member.  Our Support Members receive newsletters and are welcome to participate in fundraising, display and social activities.  Email us via the CONTACT US section of this website for a membership form or further information.

  

Every year many Flying-foxes, possums, snakes and birds become entangled in loose netting over backyard fruit trees.  Thin nylon netting causes terrible injuries which often results in death.  There are other wildlife friendly methods to protect your fruit, see Guidelines for fruit netting.

Another temporary alternative is to throw 30% blockout shadecloth over the tree while it is in fruit. This will not prevent the fruit from ripening but will deter animals and birds. Fruit can also be individually bagged on the tree to protect it.

If you must use netting, individual fruit trees can be protected from wildlife by using durable light-coloured knitted (visible at night to nocturnal animals) netting stretched tightly over a frame. An easy way to do this is using lengths of metal, timber or polypipe which can be inserted over star pickets driven into the ground with spacer bars of pipe or wood to stabilise the frame at the top. Stretch mesh (maximum mesh size 40mm) tightly over this frame and peg it securely to the ground.

An adult flying fox can weigh over 1 kilogram so the netting must be able to withstand the 'bounce' test - when you push your hand onto the netting it must not cave in around your hand.

Suggested Flying-fox food plants  

                             

• EUCALYPTS & ALLIES Corymbia citridora (Lemon Scented Gum), C. intermedia  (Pink Bloodwood), C. ptychocarpa (Swamp Bloodwood), E. curtisii  (Plunket Mallee), E. tessellaris  (Moreton Bay Ash), Lophostemon suaveolans  (Swamp Box)

• BANKSIA B. serrata (Old Man Banksia), B. integrifolia (Coastal Banksia)
  

• LILLYPILLY Acmena smithii (Pink-fruited Lillypilly), Syzygium oleosum (Blue Lillypilly)

• PAPERBARK Melaleuca leucodendron (Weeping paperbark), M. quinquenervia (Broad-leaved Paperbark),M. viridiflora (Green-flowering Paperbark)

• FIG  Ficus coronata  (Sandpaper Fig), F. obliqua (Small-leaved Fig)

• BOTTLEBRUSH Callistemon salignus (White Bottlebrush), C. viminalis (Red Northern Bottlebrush)

• GREVILLEA G. pteridifolia (Orange Grevillea), G. robusta (Silky Oak)

• Melia azenderach (White Cedar)
• Terminalia arenicola (Beach Almond)

--photographs © Halley