Bats in the Warrnambool Botanic Gardens are in for a cool shower in summer to reduce deaths from heat.
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A misting system will refresh the grey-headed flying foxes when up to 3000 roost in the gardens.
When temperatures soared last year about 60 died in the heat.
A push from Western Victoria MP Andy Meddick, from the Animal Justice Party, has resulted in $10,000 for bat-cooling sprinklers to be funded in the state budget this year.
"They are a species highly susceptible to heat events, females with pups particularly," Mr Meddick said.
"It will be pivotal to keeping these flying foxes alive."
Warrnambool Botanic Gardens curator John Sheely said the misting equipment would include four sprinklers that watered the understorey at the gardens' central lawn area.
"We have seen the flying foxes come down the Norfolk Island pine (tree) and around the base," he said.
"The bats have also used the ponds on those really hot days. They are bombing the pond to be cool. If they can be cool without moving that would result in less fatalities."
In some cases masts will raise the sprinkler system, which will double as another source of irrigation for the garden.
"For our shrub beds and our lawns, they are all going to benefit," Mr Sheely said.
A colony of grey-headed flying foxes, a threatened species under federal law, has roosted in the gardens for the past six years.
Mr Sheely said the species pollinated the gardens and region's forests such as at Framlingham.
He said the bats caused "incidental damage" to the gardens when flying in and out but "their benefits outweigh the negatives".
Mr Meddick acknowledged bats were known to carry diseases such as lyssavirus, but said concerns were only valid if people touched them.
"You shouldn't handle any of these species," he said.
"Like any other native species the key is to observe them and admire them."
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