Australia: bats suffer from major heatwave

Intense heat waves wiped out almost one third of Australia's spectacled flying foxes.

Transcript

00:30So as they're getting more and more stressed, they start to congregate in the trees into

00:41real large clumps, and that's a clear sign that they're in trouble.

02:11They'll start off with fanning themselves to cool down, and then eventually, so the

02:28larger animals, once they have sort of run out of moisture from fectrous or energy cooling

02:33themselves, they'll head over to the river behind us and have a drink in the Torrens.

03:33If you touch a bat and it scratches or it bites you, then they carry some very, very

03:46serious diseases.

03:47One of them is Australian bat lisa virus, which causes rabies.

03:52So if you do get bitten, you need to get yourself to a GP or an emergency department as fast

03:57as possible.