What if you lived in Australia?

[Sir Honkers]

Originally Posted by trailmaster

Remember my car is dead and I am in the outback, hundreds of miles from any town. Do I really want to exhaust my liquid supply so fast. If that runs out I'm a dead duck. Then all the snakes, bugs, spiders, lizards, and other critters will feast on me. Sometime in the near future someone ,maybe another tourist or some policeman or an outback ranger(if they have them) will find my car , and my skeleton!

I've never been to the outback, the heat and flies is enough to put me off. But on the rare occasions someone does die, it's usually because they've gone off the main roads. Stick to the bitumen and someone will be along shortly.
However....and I can't stress this firmly enough...DO NOT!!! attempt to flag down a roadtrain.

[sandhunter]

Originally Posted by trailmaster

Remember my car is dead and I am in the outback, hundreds of miles from any town. Do I really want to exhaust my liquid supply so fast. If that runs out I'm a dead duck. Then all the snakes, bugs, spiders, lizards, and other critters will feast on me. Sometime in the near future someone ,maybe another tourist or some policeman or an outback ranger(if they have them) will find my car , and my skeleton!

Remember as Clint Eastwood famously said in a movie "buzzards gotta eat too"

[blondifan]

Beware the bat, man.

[trailmaster]

Originally Posted by blondifan

Beware the bat, man.

That bat is not a dangerous one. It is a species of fruit bat. Their faces are dog-like. They live in caves by the tens, even hundreds of thousands and come out at night to eat fruit on fruit trees. They are very common in South and Central America. They pose no threat to man or animals(unlike the vampire bats which feed on blood on cattle).

[Tmee2020]

It is dangerous. At least three people have died in Australia after having been bitten or scratched by them.

Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV) is closely related to rabies virus. ABLV was detected in a bat found in the Melbourne suburb of Kew in July 2011. The discovery prompted health authorities to issue warnings to Melbourne residents not to touch the creatures.
ABLV was confirmed in two horses on Queensland's Darling Downs in May 2013. Both horses were euthanased when their condition deteriorated despite treatment and the attending veterinarian performed a post mortem examination obtaining samples that allowed for the laboratory diagnosis. The property was then quarantined. Three dogs and the four horses in closest contact received post exposure prophylaxis as did all nine in-contact people. The virus was isolated and identified as the insectivorous bat strain. These cases have prompted reconsideration of the potential spillover of ABLV into domestic animal species. Veterinarians are urged to consider ABLV as a differential diagnosis in cases of progressive generalized neurological disease.

There have been three confirmed cases of ABLV in humans, all of them fatal.
They also carry Hendra virus, which is lethal to horses, Nipah virus, and Menangle virus.

[trailmaster]

Originally Posted by tmee2000

It is dangerous. At least three people have died in Australia after having been bitten or scratched by them.

Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV) is closely related to rabies virus. ABLV was detected in a bat found in the Melbourne suburb of Kew in July 2011. The discovery prompted health authorities to issue warnings to Melbourne residents not to touch the creatures.
ABLV was confirmed in two horses on Queensland's Darling Downs in May 2013. Both horses were euthanased when their condition deteriorated despite treatment and the attending veterinarian performed a post mortem examination obtaining samples that allowed for the laboratory diagnosis. The property was then quarantined. Three dogs and the four horses in closest contact received post exposure prophylaxis as did all nine in-contact people. The virus was isolated and identified as the insectivorous bat strain. These cases have prompted reconsideration of the potential spillover of ABLV into domestic animal species. Veterinarians are urged to consider ABLV as a differential diagnosis in cases of progressive generalized neurological disease.

There have been three confirmed cases of ABLV in humans, all of them fatal.
They also carry Hendra virus, which is lethal to horses, Nipah virus, and Menangle virus.

I stand corrected. Maybe only the fruit bats of South and Central America are free of these viruses.

[Tmee2020]

They would be a different breed I guess.

Anyway there are bags of them around here if you would like some TM.

[buttsie]

Originally Posted by loosegoose

I've never been to the outback, the heat and flies is enough to put me off. But on the rare occasions someone does die, it's usually because they've gone off the main roads. Stick to the bitumen and someone will be along shortly.
However....and I can't stress this firmly enough...DO NOT!!! attempt to flag down a roadtrain.

or they come hiking , think their indestructible and take a wrong turn

American tourist, 33, is found dead in the Australian outback in soaring 108F temperatures

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...Australia.html

The worst case - 2 young urban naive locals used & abused

Nearly 16 years after the deaths of two teenage boys in the searing heat of the Gibson Desert - one having resorted to blowing his brains out with a rifle - their ordeal still haunts Australians.

It has been a long, hard road for Les and Sandra Annetts, whose son James, as a 16-year-old Griffith schoolboy, responded to an advertisement for jackaroos in the Kimberley in 1986 and left home for an adventure.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/...115911284.html

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by tmee2000

They would be a different breed I guess.

Anyway there are bags of them around here if you would like some TM.

Many species of bats eat insects such as mosquitoes. A bat can eat its weight in mosquitoes each night. Unfortunately, bats have gone extinct in some areas with dire consequences for the humans attempting to live there.

[Sir Honkers]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

Many species of bats eat insects such as mosquitoes. A bat can eat its weight in mosquitoes each night. Unfortunately, bats have gone extinct in some areas with dire consequences for the humans attempting to live there.

We've got five fruit trees in our yard and we leave about a quarter of each tree free of netting so the bats can get to the fruit at night and Rosellas and White Cockies during the day. Doesn't take them long to strip their share of the tree bare.