The extreme heatwave in Australia has led to the mass death of flying foxes — vital pollinators for local ecosystems.
Preliminary estimates suggest that tens of thousands of individuals have died, including many pups and juveniles. Scientists are calling the event the loss of an entire generation.
These animals, especially the grey-headed flying fox, are already threatened due to habitat loss. Heat stress has been a catastrophic blow to the populations.
Flying foxes cannot effectively cool themselves at temperatures above 40 degrees, leading to mass deaths in colonies. Such events undermine the natural processes of species recovery and threaten the pollination of many local plants, including eucalyptus.
Ecologists are calling for urgent measures to protect the remaining colonies: creating artificial water and shade points, as well as more active actions to combat climate change, which is making such anomalies increasingly frequent.
