Community & Business
30 May, 2023
Free talk on the amazing Spectacled Flying-fox
A FREE talk revolving around the Spectacled Flying Fox, a tropical rainforest specialist and keystone species, will be held at the Malanda Hotel on Thursday.
The animal is crucial to the survival and evolution of our Wet Tropics rainforests, but, unfortunately, is also endangered.
Flying mammals with a sociable lifestyle, flying foxes are important for pollination and fruit dispersal and have suffered a dramatic decline because of habitat loss, cyclones and persecution.
Between 2004 and 2017 the population plummeted from 326,000 down to 78,000. In 2018, another 23,000 individuals died in a single heat-stress event in Cairns, the second largest flying-fox mass death event recorded and never seen before in this species.
With the return of El Nino weather conditions ahead, there are grave fears for the Wet Tropics population.
Dr Noel Preece has been studying this species for many years and will share the most current knowledge about their biology and ecology and discuss concerns and actions necessary to help the species survive at the talk.
The event will be held from 7.30pm on Thursday, 8 June at the Malanda Hotel. The Tree Kangaroo and Mammal Group is hosting the talk and is keen to see better knowledge shared about this endemic species.
