It's been three decades flying foxes are recognized as a threatened species. Now they are in need of a conservation effort. In recent years their death rate has been increased rapidly on the tropical island. Flying fox is the largest bat species in the world, usually, diets on fruits.
A joint team from Texas Tech University, University of Mauritius and Kyoto University are planning to promote their conservation and doing several types of research to find out the reasons behind their loss. In the journal of Science, biologists have described that they should protect island flying foxes and take immediate actions.
Texas Tech University’s professor of Biological Science and lead author Tigga Kingston wrote in her report,“ Island flying foxes were recognized as a group of conservation concern more than 30 years ago when intense hunting and commercial trading of species on Pacific islands precipitated the extinction of at least one species, the endemic Guam flying fox, and led to dramatic declines in others”. Kingston also pointed that flying foxes are not the only victim of hunting but they are also killed by fruit growers.
The government of one island nation, Mauritius suggest that at least 45 percent of the overall population was eliminated due to mass killing conflicts. According to Phys, Pteropus niger which is also known as Mauritian flying foxes had been classified as endangered species.
Kingston and her colleagues have measured that the mortality rate of bat pups are almost 50 percent of total population. Their reproduction rate is much slower than any other bat species. So, it is very difficult for them to recover their loss which leads them to the risk of extinction. There are almost 65 species of flying foxes are available in this world. Among them, 31 species are labeled as endangered and 28 of them are native to the island[Mauritius].
Kingston also explained that flying foxes are great pollinators. They play an active role in seed dispersing, even in some islands they are the only medium to disperse seeds. So saving their species would be beneficial for both island people and ecosystem.
