Bats and Trees Society of Cairns - Flying-fox Watch Survey
What is a flying-fox watch survey?
Bats and Trees Society of Cairns is collecting information about where spectacled flying-foxes are spending their days and nights. Spectacled flying-foxes are a large bat found in Australia and New Guinea. Most of the Australian population lives in the Wet Tropics region of Far North Queensland. The species is listed as Endangered in Australia as the population has declined 80-85% since 2004, and is still declining. In 2018, one-third of the Australian population died in an unprecedented heatwave in Cairns.
Flying-foxes rest hanging in trees in large groups during the day. These daytime roosting places are called camps. At dusk they fly out from their camps to feed in trees in rainforests, eucalypt forests and other vegetation. They are very important in spreading pollen and seeds of rainforest fruits both short and long distances which helps maintain forest biodiversity.
The numbers of spectacled flying-foxes in each known camp are counted on a quarterly basis, but we want to know more about their movements, where they are feeding at night and where they are roosting during the day. We need your help.
The Flying-fox Watch project is similar to other citizen science projects like Birds Australia's Birds in Backyards project. The project is funded through a grant from the Qld State Government.
We are asking you to upload photos of where you see flying-foxes and to tell us what they are doing. If you see flying-foxes in a tree at night time you can photograph the tree the next day in daylight. Please ensure that the location information is turned on when you take the photograph. You might see other types of flying-foxes - this information is useful too.
By filling out this survey and telling us where you see flying-foxes gives us valuable information to better conserve and manage flying-foxes. The information you give us will help us identify important low-conflict roosts where we can improve the roosting habitat to help spectacled flying-fox camps to stay cooler in future heatwaves.
The survey can be taken multiple times as flying-foxes may change their roosting and foraging habits depending on the resources available.
We don't need your contact details but if you do give any personal information, it will not be divulged to any other parties and will only be seen by the bat watch project team. Only the location information will be entered in the data files.
Thank you for your help!
If you have more questions or want to find out more about Bats and Trees Society please email president.batosc@gmail.com
