Heather Caulfield owns a bat aviary that houses about 300 bats a year, it's the only one in NSW.
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She's a self proclaimed bat enthusiast and the Southern Tablelands' only bat carer.
"I learn everyday, everyday I'm seeing something different," she said.
Ms Caulfield started volunteering with WIRES in 2010 looking after kangaroos and wallabies.
"It was fabulous, heartbreaking at times, but really rewarding and I really loved it," she said.
"After a while, the Southern Tablelands WIRES branch organised a bat course to be held down here because we had no bat carers and we weren't able to respond to any of the rescues.
"And I thought, 'I like mammals, these guys are mammals, I don't think I like bats but I should probably go along because it's unfair that we've got no one to do it'."
A month after completing the course, Ms Caulfield picked up her first two bats Beryl and Bernice that gave birth to pups in the Spring.
"In the next year I think I had 12 bats in total come in and then it just snowballed," she said.
She soon realised there were no flight facilities in NSW to look after certain species of bats, such as freetail bats that flew long distances.
"There was just nowhere to send these animals when they needed rehabilitation and they were vulnerable," she said.
"So we put the case together to build a 10m by 10m bat aviary and applied for a grant, and we got the whole thing funded."
All bats in Australia are native animals, there are no introduced species and they are all protected.
Ms Caulfield said the species of bat she came across most frequently was a small species called an insectivorous bat.
"An interesting fact about them is that they have absolute fidelity to their colony," she said.
"Their colony might be spread across a couple of different areas but they spend their whole lives hanging out with their best friends and family.
"The teenage boys can get a little aggressive but otherwise they all get along."
While the heavy rain caused a lot of issues for humans, Ms Caulfield said the rain brought out lots of insects for the insectivorous bats to eat.
"At the moment I'm seeing bats in the night sky, which is kind of cool. I like that, I get excited."
Currently, the biggest threats to bats are land clearing and the subsequent loss of food sources, animals such as cats or foxes and climate change due to rising temperatures.
"When the temperature gets over about 42 degrees, flying foxes, which are the most common species in NSW, start to suffer heat stress and they start to cook from the inside," Ms Caulfield said.
"They start dying on mass. Over the last decade or so there's been some really, really big mass mortalities where tens of thousands die over a weekend."
Ms Caulfield also explained that bat breeding rates were extremely low.
"Most species have one or two pups a year, so it's not many and they don't start breeding until they're about three years of age," she said.
Ms Caulfield advised that anyone who had found a bat to not touch it due to the risk of Australian Bat Lyssavirus (ABLV).
"It's the virus that people get very scared of, it kills the bats as well, but the rates are very low," she said.
Bat carers are vaccinated against the virus and have to get blood checks each year.
Ms Caulfield explained that when people were scratched or bitten, often the consequence was sadder for the bat than the human.
"Usually, it's people trying to do the right thing," she said.
"For example, a year or two ago there was a young pup that was stuck in a Bunning's fence.
"The person tried to take it off the barbed wire and was scratched so they had to go to the hospital.
"So NSW Health, instead of going down the vaccination path will almost always ask for the body of the animal and test it for Lyssavirus, but the only way you can do the test is by taking out half the brain and you can't put it back together again afterwards.
"It was a tiny bat, only maybe 12 weeks old and it broke my heart because I had to go and do the rescue and you sort of think oh please don't, please don't."
Instead of trying to help the bat yourself, Ms Caulfield advised to call WIRES immediately.
If a bat is outside during the evening it's generally fine to be left alone however, if you find a bat outside alone during the day it's worth giving WIRES a call to check on it.
If you find a bat inside your house, you should keep an eye on it until WIRES arrive.
"If we get a call from someone who says there was a bat flying around their house last night but they can't see it in the morning, we're never going to find it," Ms Caulfield said.
"Little bats are often the ones that you'll find in your house and they can enter through spaces about the size of a thumbnail."
Pups are generally born in Spring and start learning to hunt in Autumn.
"By this time of year, you've got juveniles that are learner pilot and they are often taking more risks and getting themselves into trouble," she said.
If you do see a bat in trouble, call WIRES on 1300 094 737 or use a Report a rescue form.
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