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CSIRO Publishing, Australian Mammalogy, 3(44), p. 419-422, 2022

DOI: 10.1071/am21041

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A report of direct mortality in grey-headed flying-foxes (

Journal article published in 2022 by Matthew Mo ORCID, Mark Minehan, Edward Hack, Vanessa Place, Justin A. Welbergen ORCID
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

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Abstract

Study of the impacts of the 2019–2020 Black Summer bushfires on flying-foxes has mainly focused on the effects of burnt habitat on food availability. It has previously only been assumed that flying-foxes probably died directly from these bushfires. We report an eyewitness account of numbers of grey-headed flying-foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) being killed as they attempted to escape a bushfire engulfing a flying-fox camp in Jeremadra, New South Wales. Once in the air, most of the flying-foxes dropped to the ground, scattering carcasses throughout the vicinity. This observation represents the only eyewitness report of flying-fox mortalities occurring directly from these bushfires. Given the substantial proportion of the grey-headed flying-fox range affected by these bushfires, we infer that such mortalities likely occurred in other locations.