Recent studies on fruit bats in Australia have shown that humans are encroaching on bat habitats and risking exposure to Hendravirus. Researchers from the University of Melbourne, the University of Sydney, and the State University of New York have been studying the effects of human pressure on these bat habitats and have seen an increase in the incidence of hendra virus spillover.
Fruit bats are essential to their ecosystems both as pollinators and seed distributors, but they’re also natural reservoirs for some incredibly deadly emerging zoonotic diseases, such as Hendravirus, Nipah virus, and Ebola. In eastern Australia, there has been an increasing expansion in suburban areas which encroached on the bats’ natural habitats. As Australians continue to expand into these environments, bats will continue to shift into suburban areas and increase the risk of transmission of their deadly viruses. According to the research conducted from 2000-2015, this shift correlates with an increase in the spillover events.
Just last week, there were complaints of a “plague of bats” in the Northern Queenland suburban area. In the area, there were approximately 200,000 bats taking root in the town - which led to the closing of major parks in the area. In the Northern area of Queenland, there are many flowering eucalypts that the bats are naturally drawn to. As the habitats continue to merge, the public should make sure to be vaccinating their horses to protect them from the deadly hendra virus and should be attempting to avoid bat bites at all costs!
-Meley Gebresellassie
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