Bat Injuries

All photos: Steve Amesbury

This bat looks like she is just resting, but the damage is evident in the photos to right and left.

Injuries in flying foxes include:

1. Mouth. In desperation many bats will try to bite themselves off the barbs. This can result in severe damage to the roof of the mouth, loss of teeth and even fractures of the jaw.
Treatments: Pain relief, often antibiotics and a soft diet are crucial for healing. Surgery may be necessary.

Photo: Australian Wildlife Hospital		Photo: Unknown Puncture wound from barbed wire

2. Wing membrane. The wing of a bat consists of 2 layers of skin with nerves, blood vessels, musculature and lymphatics in between. Most bats are caught on the fence by their wings, and this results in tearing, puncturing, severe bruising, inflammation and death of tissue. The wing is often badly twisted as the bat is spun around on impact, as well as from struggling to free itself.
Treatments: Clean the area and keep moist with macadamia oil, or the like.

3. Bones. Bones can be broken, or stripped bare. We find dressings, such as Duoderm and Bioclusive that keep the wound moist, to be extremely helpful. Regeneration of wing tissue around the bone can sometimes be miraculous, especially in a young animal.
Treatments: Antibiotics, surgery in some cases.

4. Body. Bats can be entangled by the hair and skin anywhere. The resulting puncture wounds can be of varying severity.
Treatments: Trim hair around wound and clean. May need topical treatment such as betadine or oral antibiotics.

5. The penis... ouch! These photos were taken at a rescue near Nowra. Photos by Gerry Hawkins and Steve Amesbury.

Do not be tempted to rescue the bat and let it go. There is usually a die-back process in the wing that may not be evident for several days. The damage may look quite minimal at first, but lack of blood supply to the wing while it is still entangled can lead to a surprising amount of die-back, or loss of wing membrane. Many of these bats may fly away at the time, but then lose the ability to fly over the next few days. Bones are often broken or stripped of wing membrane, and infection may set in. The animal is nearly always stressed and dehydrated, and needs to be kept in care for a minimum of 2 weeks to assess the full effect of the damage. Bats can have a lot of difficulty eating anything except smoothies and fluids until their mouths heal. It is not always immediately evident if the bat will be releasable.

Photo: Ashleigh Johnson. The twisting that can occur. Note barbs have been removed before trying to remove bat from fence.		Photo: Ashleigh Johnson. The dieback that occurs some days after rescue. The resulting slit will make it impossible for this bat to fly.

The Little Red flying foxes are affected more than the 3 larger species of flying foxes, presumably as their flight is weaker in windy conditions. It is not uncommon for large numbers of Little Red flying foxes to get caught over a few weeks, especially when the young cannot fly well enough to cope with windy conditions. On the Atherton Tablelands, these mass events usually occur in August to October. In 1994, 442 Little Red flying foxes were caught, mostly along one 10 km stretch of barbed wire. Little Reds occur across northern and eastern Australia extending inland long distances depending on the availability of flowering trees.
We have often rescued bats from governement-funded fences that are protecting revegetation plantings from cattle. The irony is that one goal of the revegetation plantings is to improve biodiversity, but when bats come to offer their seed dispersal and pollination services, they are caught. As the plantings increase in height, the situation often improves.

Photo:Sonja Elwood Severe damage to bones and membrane of both wings.		Photo: Jenny Maclean Maggot eggs in wound

Photo: Ashleigh Johnson Blossom bat on a new fence		Photo: Ashleigh Johnson

This series of photos (below) were taken by a passer-by who called us out to rescue the bat. He was fortunate to be released about 2 weeks later.

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