Anyone who has come into close quarters with these critters will know that they have a pretty brutal musty smell as it is, so I can only imagine what 100,000 corpses would smell like in a heat wave. I’m gonna guess it’s minging. On top of that there’s the real possibility of them spreading diseases to humans as they rot. Diseases and viruses absolutely love the heat, they get all excited and work extra hard at making people ill.
Flying foxes carry Australian Bat Lyssavirus (ABV) which can be transmitted via a bite or scratch, but also potentially by being exposed to bat saliva through the eyes, nose or mouth. ABV is no joke, it can cause paralysis, delirium, convulsions and sometimes death via respiratory paralysis.
There’s no proper treatment for ABV either which isn’t cool. So, no, you don’t want to catch it. It’s certainly not a common disease, but if you mix a ridiculously hot climate with a bunch of bat cadavers easily accessible to kids, you may well be asking for trouble.
For now residents are mostly annoyed with the awful smell and the mess. Workers have been sent out by local councils to clear up as many of the corpse piles as they can but it’s a big job and also a pretty unpleasant one I would imagine. Many locals are complaining that the job isn’t being carried out quickly enough. But I guess you can’t do anything quickly in temperatures like that?
Here’s a video taken by a fella called Murray Paas in Dayboro, Queensland last week showing a bunch of bat corpses round the back of his house.
It can’t be easy being dressed in a long black leather/fur coat in 40+ degree heat. So don’t pity the Aussie’s and their wonderful hot summer, pity the bats.
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