Couple spot black blob on sailboat ropes — and realize it's a wild animal in danger
A few weeks ago, a 4-month-old flying fox in Queensland, Australia, flitted out into the night for some food. As he made his way along the shoreline in the darkness, he ran into a beached sailboat and got caught in the rigging.
The flying fox, later named Gary, thrashed about but couldn’t free himself from the boat’s ropes.
By the next morning, Gary was exhausted — and still stuck.
Luckily, a couple who lived nearby with a view of the ocean woke up early to water their garden. They spotted a black blob moving in the rigging and knew an animal must be in trouble.
Approaching slowly, they snapped some photos and sent them to their neighbor, Glenda Sinclair, an experienced wildlife rescuer with a background in veterinary medicine.
“The image of poor Gary stuck in the rigging of the abandoned yacht was very distressing,” Sinclair told The Dodo. “He obviously was stuck and desperately trying to free himself.”
“The sun was getting hotter,” Sinclair said. “As you can imagine, it was very bright for a nocturnal animal to be caught out like that.”
The neighbors watched little Gary struggle and didn’t want him to get hurt. But there was one major hurdle: lyssavirus.
Lyssavirus comes from the same family as rabies and can be fatal to humans. Sinclair and her neighbors weren’t vaccinated against it and had no idea if Gary was a carrier. They had to rescue the baby without touching him.
Thinking quickly, they grabbed a ladder and taped a mop to a long pool skimmer.
At first, Gary refused to budge. But, “when the mop hovered over the top of him,” Sinclair said, “he grabbed on and was lifted slightly up and freed. He fluttered to the ground, where we secured him with a towel and box.”
When licensed rescuers with Wildlife Rescue Queensland arrived, Sinclair described Gary as a “cranky little beast.”
“They have very sharp teeth, and he wasn’t afraid to use them,” she said.
Gary was transported to the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital, where vets treated him for some minor cuts.
Since then, he’s fully recovered and living in an aviary with Louella Harley, an experienced carer with Bat Conservation and Rescue QLD. Harley said Gary is set to be released next week alongside 60 other orphaned and rescued flying foxes.
As for Sinclair, she was glad her neighbors were in the right place at the right time: “Always a great feeling to save a little life.”
