Next on our to-do list was a visit to the Tolga Bat Hospital in Atherton. Aside from noticing that these little buggers were much more adorable than imagined, we were taught a bit about the speckled flying foxes. Since the mid-1980s, the species has been under stress from tick paralysis. This affliction is just as it sounds... a tick bites them and in a matter of hours, the bat is paralyzed.

Volunteers spend hours scouring the Tablelands for paralyzed bats, with the good intention of bringing them (via cozy baskets) to the bat hospital where the decision is made to treat or euthanize.

A lot of this to me seems, unlike the fire-proof trees below, not according basic principles of Darwin. I'm not quite sure why we are interfering so much with nature, but maybe I don't quite understand as well as I should. Maybe it's because some humans care about one aspect too much. Cute and playful does not mean fit to be in the environment forever. I'm sure they play a large role in the ecosystem in northern Australia, but if they disappear, doesn't nature adapt?

Photo: A speckled flying fox being treated with anti-toxin at the Tolga Bat Hospital.