Our Fruit Bat, Cornelius.My husband and I had the opportunity to work for the best part of a year in Brisbane. We arrived in the city in late February to find the temperature very warm and the skies clear and blue. However we were told storms could develop and sure enough, a very violent electrical storm occurred shortly after our arrival.After the storm we noticed a black triangular shaped object hanging from a power wire just outside our apartment block and assumed it was some child’s parachute.

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However the next day I heard the black shape squeaking and could see that it was a young bat. I called the power department who were to send someone to recover the young animal. However before the man arrived I saw it fall from the wire so I rushed outside with a towel and picked up a very much alive, tiny fruit bat.Within Australia there was a group ONARR (orphaned native animal rear and release association) and I called them for assistance and advice. Very quickly an expert from the University arrived complete with bat bottle and teat, a milk powder formulation and lots of wonderful advice. They also brought a chilli bin and hot water bottle to keep it warm.Because we were in the country working for the NZ Government I was made a member of ONARR and the expert decided that with my wide experience with animals I was suited to caring for the young bat.It was thought the young bat must have climbed from his mother onto the power wire and for some reason she never returned. The most likely explanation being that the mother had been injured in the storm.Cornelius needed to be bottle fed at least every 2 hours using the milk formula sent by ONARR. He was fed with his head lower than his torso.

 

Special milk formula is produced in Australia for all of the different native animals and it is readily available.The bat enjoyed human company and it accompanied us everywhere we went.Cornelius also enjoyed supervising with the ironing. He just liked to be close. When sleeping he would fold his wings so that they covered his eyes.The bat soon outgrew the chilli bin and graduated to a towel hung on an airing frame. This was where it practiced wing flapping and was fed on a diet of fruit. As it became near full size the bat would climb to the top of the towel hold on and beat his wings for quite extended periods of 10 to 15 minutes.Cornelius became quite mobile and pulled himself across the floor on outstretched wings by hooking its thumb into the carpet. Each morning it would crawl/ flap to our bedroom, scratch at the door which we opened and he would then climb up my side of the bed and share marmalade on toast with us or snuggle against my neck.Eventually his wing span reached 1 metre and Cornelius became a very skilful flier, negotiating his way through the open plan living area of the flat. Cornelius could do amazing slow speed turns within a confined area. It became necessary to provide a temporary cage as visitors were often alarmed when Cornelius would crash land on their chest for when someone entered the lounge, where we had his towel on a drying rack, he would take off and fly straight to land on your chest.The bat wings felt like the finest leather and were almost transparent.

I was told to keep them supple by rubbing them with baby oil. If a wing is holed or torn it repairs very quickly.It is easy to see the structure of the thumb (which is extremely sharp), four fingers and the two bones which are the equivalent of our arm.When Cornelius was 6 months old, as we had agreed, we took him to a pre-release facility so that he could be prepared for life in the wild.This picture is of his first encounter with another bat at the facility. A young female had been placed in a special cage for the introduction. The two chattered away and moved off behind a curtained area, all the time hanging upside down as they climbed along the wires of the cage. In this release facility fruits were placed in large buckets which were hung from the roof. In the evening the doors would be opened and bats could venture out into the city. Wild bats would enter the building for the food.Fruit bats are related to the Lemur monkeys and it is thought that they retain a memory for names and people.We visited Cornelius several times and each time when we called his name he would swing across the wire and come right down to me, often emerging from a dense cluster of other bats.He was the most beautiful animal I have had the pleasure of caring for.Giving him up was very hard and the ONARR group recognised this and supplied me with another young bat to care for few the few months we had remaining in Australia.Footnote.This experience occurred when my husband and I were working for the NZ Expo Commission at the 1988 World Expo in Brisbane. At that time there was no problem with bats carrying diseases that could affect humans.

 

Lois Agnew

(ONARR provide a magnificent service to injured and orphaned wild life in Australia and we greatly appreciated them allowing us this amazing opportunity.Raising Cornelius was an experience we will never forget.)