In the 11 years since Denise Wade has been rehabilitating flying foxes, she estimates she's cared for thousands.

Give or take a hundred or two every year, she says an annual count hovers at around 400.

"I'm in deep now," she says.

Despite having cared for so many flying foxes, she still remembers her first one, an orphan named Amber.

"I still have her photo in my wallet," she says. "And I have a photo of her on my fridge."

Wade isn't a veterinarian or a wildlife official by profession. Instead, she volunteers for Bat Conservation Rescue Queensland.

In Rochedale South in the south of Queensland (outside Brisbane), she lives on a suburban block, where she takes care of the flying foxes in her own