It’s best to keep your voice down when strolling through Melbourne’s Yarra Bend Golf Course. The sport requires peace and quiet—as do the 30,000 bats sleeping in the trees that dot the green.

Such large groups of gray-headed flying foxes, a species of fruit-eating megabat that measures 11 inches tall, are no longer uncommon sights in several Australian cities, including Melbourne. Over the past few decades, the expansion of new urban food sources and development in the bats’ rural homes have made cities their main residence.

This migration has been a mixed blessing for flying foxes, which face threats from urban infrastructure such as nets and barbed wire, as well as harassment from residents. But some local advocates, are fighting to help