Kuranda bat carer Rebecca Koller dedicates each waking moment of her day to rescuing, caring for, and rehabilitating hundreds of bats.

Key points: Caring for bats can be an expensive 24-hour job

Caring for bats can be an expensive 24-hour job The vet association says many carers can suffer mental health problems if they don't look after themselves

The vet association says many carers can suffer mental health problems if they don't look after themselves A science expert says flying foxes are important for the health of our native forests

Ms Koller said she had more than 450 bats in her care after the recent heat event, but she now has almost 600.

"If I don't get classed as the 'crazy bat lady' there is something seriously wrong … I can't really deny it," she said.

Michelle Kraatz looks after orphaned flying foxes. ( Supplied: Michelle Kraatz )

"At this quantity there's very little sleep, the volume means that it's a huge amount of work.

"You have to check the health of their wings, so you have to actually physically look at their wings … times that by 500, everything, just times it by 500."

Ms Koller said taking care of the animals could be a challenge.

"To chop up fruit, it's a very menial, basic task, but it takes four hours and that has to be done every single day," she said.

"Every single food tray you put in there has to be taken out and scrubbed in the morning and the aviaries have to be scrubbed.

"It's costing well over $1,000 dollars a week just in fruit, I'm going through roughly about 10 crates a night."

Central Queensland bat carer Michelle Kraatz has opened her home to hundreds of bats over the past five years.

"It's doing their smoothies, it's their treatments twice a day and getting them to their vet appointments, and then rescues and so forth," she said.

"The orphaned bats will be often babies and they'll stay actually in your home and they go through different stages in your house.

"They might start in a cot or in a basket and then they go to a play gym as they get more active.

"Once they start learning to fly, then they go into creche, which is kindergarten for bats.

"I have a flight cage, which is about 12 metres by three across.

"So they will be in your house until they go into their creche mode."

Bats in rehabilitation hanging from their cage in Kuranda, far north Queensland. ( ABC Far North: Brendan Mounter )

'It's very rewarding'

Ms Kraatz said the benefits outweighed the difficulty of the job.

"It's very rewarding. They are the most emotionally complex animal and the most intelligent animal you'll ever come across," she said.

"They play hide-and-seek, peekaboo, they like to pull things apart, they'll take things off your head and laugh and then run across the cage because they want you to chase them …

"I've just got so many stories about little things that they do or big things that they do, and they just never cease to amazing me."

The most rewarding part for Ms Koller was returning the bats to the wild.

"That's the best moment because that's what all the hard work is for — and it is hard work," she said.

"It's emotionally taxing, physically taxing doing this amount of animals.

"But the second you actually watch them fly free and start hopping around trees and interacting with a wild colony … it just makes every second worthwhile."

A declining population

Around 23,000 spectacled flying foxes — about a third of the species' population in Australia — died in the Cairns area towards the end of last year during an extreme heatwave.

Thousands of spectacled flying foxes dropped dead from trees during a week of record-breaking heat in Cairns. ( Supplied: David White )

Ms Koller said the heatwave came on top of a series of devastating events.

"We've had a starvation event; they didn't get enough food, so we had all these pups that were born malnourished," she said.

"Because there wasn't enough food out there, they were feeding off wild tobacco and so we saw cleft palate syndrome, a lot of pups were born with a deformity.

"We had tick season on top of that and then the heat event, which knocked out a third of the population.

Ms Koller said she had watched the bats decline each year.

"This year we lost 23,000, it's a third of the population that remains in the wild, that was an absolutely devastating loss," she said.

"You have two more events like that and the species is gone.

"It's really hard to recover from because they only have one pup, generally, a year.

"You're just watching them slowly disappear in front of your eyes.

"The population now is half of what it was when I first started working with them … you hear about a species that could become extinct in your lifetime, but to actually watch it happen is really frightening."

An army of wildlife volunteers removed thousands of rotting bat carcasses from around Cairns last month. ( Supplied: David White )

Australasian Bat Society spokesman Damian Milne said there had been a 70 per cent decline in the spectacled flying fox population.

"Between 2004 and 2017, the spectacled flying fox population is estimated to have declined from 250,270 individuals to 75,347 individuals," Dr Milne said.

"Approximately one third of the remaining population is estimated to have died in the heatwave in north Queensland in November 2018."

'Carers will often forget about themselves'

Ms Koller said carers were encouraged to seek counselling after the heatwave event.

"You've seen mass death and destruction and you're collecting lots of dead bodies," Ms Koller said.

"Carers have been known to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after events like that and they have a particularly high rate of suicide.

"Yes, they raise the animals and they can rehabilitate the animals, but more often than not they see animals die and suffer and it can affect them quite profoundly."

Ms Koller said wildlife carer groups acted as a support network and played an important role in the wellbeing of individual carers during challenging times.

"Bat carers Australia-wide … all know each other, they're connected to each other and will help as well," she said.

"During the events the carers will often forget about themselves completely — even basic things like keeping themselves hydrated in the heat, they don't even consider.

"So that's where the group comes in and actually starts to look after each other."

Ms Koller said some carers decided to take a break after the mass death event.

"We've got about 30 carers roughly and that ranges from Mission Beach all the way up to Cooktown," she said.

"We probably lost about five carers … they just need a bit of a break to recoup from what this season was.

"We'll see if we can get some new people on board and get people training and hopefully not have to put them through what we just did, because it really was a baptism of fire."

Animal-related occupation suicide on the rise



Although no specific statistic exists for suicide rates in animal carers, the Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) said veterinarians were up to four times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.

University of Queensland's Rebekah Scotney said, based on her research, the suicide rate across all animal-related occupations was alarming.

"[Suicide] is definitely on an upward trajectory and should be of major concern to both society and government," Dr Scotney said.

"We need more resources to explore the crises faced by those in all animal-related occupations and to develop tools, programs, resources that will assist in all types of animal caregiver roles."

Dr Scotney suggested the use of contextualised 'toolboxes' containing useful resources to encourage a proactive approach to compassion fatigue and occupational stress.

"Resources to support the mental health and wellbeing of those animal carers who are struggling," she said.

"These resources are slowly being accrued by small pockets across some industries, but it needs to be focussed much wider and we could certainly use more champions to help continue work in this area."

Dr Scotney conducted a study on compassion fatigue in animal health care workers.

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"Often people who are carers and go into those caregiving roles spend a lot of their time looking after animals that are traumatised," Dr Scotney said.

"We know that in all caregiving occupations, when we are giving so much of ourselves and taking on that trauma that's suffered by those in our care, we can suffer what's called compassion fatigue.

"Compassion fatigue is made up of a number of different things, which includes burnout and also post-traumatic stress-type symptoms.

"If left unchecked, these sorts of emotional weariness and emotional burdens can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder and we've certainly seen that in a number of different animal-related occupations."

Dr Scotney also said the negative stigma around pest species could make carers feel isolated.

"There's reduced support for those people who are caring for them; they're not well understood," she said.

"So they are victimised in a way, I suppose, for what they believe and trying to protect these animals that others in the general population may consider to be pest species.

"They feel like they're out on their own and I think that's a very real thing for our bat carers."

One of the 600 bats in Rebecca Koller's care in Kuranda, far north Queensland. ( ABC Far North: Brendan Mounter )

'We don't need you to love them'

Ms Koller said she understood that bats had a negative reputation.

"You're not going to get everyone to love bats, as much as you try it's not going to happen and that could go for any animal species," she said.

"We don't need you to love them, you just need to understand that they're part of the ecosystem and a really important part.

"Without [them] the rainforest will cease to exist."

A Queensland Department of Environment and Science (DES) spokesman said flying foxes were critical to maintaining the health of native forests.

"They play an important role in dispersing seeds and pollinating flowering plants," the spokesman said.

"Pollen sticks to their furry bodies and as they crawl from flower to flower, and fly from tree to tree, they pollinate the flowers and aid in the production of honey.

"This reinforces the gene pool and health of native forests."

Ms Kraatz said people mistakenly think that all bats carry deadly diseases.

"A lot of people think that every single bat has lyssavirus … less than 0.1 per cent of the whole population of microbats and flying foxes have it," she said.

"There's just so much fear mongering and misinformation [and] unfortunately a lot of people believe it."

'They love a cuddle'

Michelle Kraatz converts her clothes line into a sunbathing area for orphaned bats. ( Supplied: Michelle Kraatz )

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics there are 487 scientists, researchers, naturalists, environmental consultants, carers and other people with an interest in bats.

Central Queensland carer Teneille Fletcher decided to become a bat carer to fulfil her childhood dream.

After a series of three injections and a blood test, Ms Fletcher and her eight-year-old daughter were given the green light to bring bats into their home.

"I just bought one of those little play gyms, they like to hang off those, they like to hang off you, they like to snuggle, you get to feed them little bottles.

"It's just like having a newborn basically.

"They love a big cuddle and they love a little head scratch, but obviously do not touch them in the wild if you're not vaccinated.

"They're actually not the vicious, scary animals that people think they are."

Daughter Teyahlee Fletcher said she was scared of the needles, but excited to look after the bats.

"I like them because they like to snuggle with you and talk to you … they're like little babies," she said.

"I say 'It's alright if you don't like them, but I do'.

"They're not scary, they're cute."

Eight-year-old Teyahlee Fletcher says she's excited to look after orphaned microbats and flying foxes. ( Supplied: Teneille Fletcher )

What to do if you find an injured bat

A Queensland DES spokesman said members of the public should not handle bats without taking the necessary precautions.

"Catching diseases from bats is extremely unlikely," he said.

"Australian bat lyssavirus can only be caught from untreated bites or scratches from infected bats.

"If you find a sick, injured or orphaned insectivorous bat, do not touch it.

"Contact your local wildlife care organisation or the RSPCA Qld.

"They will put you in contact with a licensed and fully vaccinated wildlife rescuer who is trained to handle and care for wildlife."