Instructors, Australia and Bats

BY Mike Clift | Friday, November 15, 2019 Features

Instructors, Australia and Bats

Our Instructors Get Around

Here at Seahaven Maritime Academy we have a number of highly experienced, professional instructors and they turn up in all sorts of places.

Chris Payne is one of our First Aid Instructors and he recently visited Australia for a well-deserved break. During his travels down under, he visited a bat sanctuary and was fortunate enough to get up close to some Spectacled Flying Fox Bats.

Chris is an animal lover with a keen interest in nature and unusual species, so you can just imagine his excitement when he was invited to hold one of these amazing creatures. The bat appeared very relaxed and took up an instinctive position by holding onto the fabric of his t-shirt. During this time, Chris took the opportunity to ask the staff a number of questions he had about Spectacled Flying Fox Bats.

Spectacled Flying-Fox at Tolga Bat Hospital

Spectacled Flying-Fox Bats

These amazing creatures are a native species to Queensland and sadly are listed as a threatened species under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1991. Loss of their prime feeding habitat has resulted in a serious decline in their numbers.

The spectacled flying fox (Pteropus conspicillatus), also known as the spectacled fruit bat, is a megabat that lives in Australia's north-eastern regions of Queensland. It is also found in New Guinea and on the offshore islands including Woodlark Island, Alcester Island, Kiriwina, and Halmahera.
– Wikipedia - The Free Encylopedia

The spectacled flying fox’s natural diet is rainforest fruits, riparian zone flowers, flowers from Myrtaceae (primarily Eucalyptus and Syzygium species) and fruits from the Moraceae (figs) and Myrtacea.

More About Chris

When Chris is not jetting off to Australia, he is a Fully Qualified First Aid Training Instructor.

He is a competent and skilled instructor who takes his job very seriously. He takes great pride that his job is an important one and that his high standard of training really can and does save lives.

Our students greatly enjoy and value our courses and come away from the academy with an important life skill that prepares well them for any of the diverse professional and leisure maritime environments they will likely encounter.

Our Maritime Training Courses

Seahaven Maritime Academy, based at The Port of Newhaven in East Sussex, is the ideal establishment for Maritime Training at all levels. The link below will provide you with more information:-

Maritime Course Information

If you would like further information then please feel free to get in touch.

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About The Author

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Mike Clift
Director

Mike is a Director at Seahaven Maritime Academy. He has many years of professional experience within the Maritime Industry and has an excellent reputation for teaching. He has a real care for the training process and is dedicated to providing his students with a positive and meaningful training experience.