Baby Toa

One of the perks of living here amongst all the contract employees of AS is most definitely experiencing all the rad jobs our friends have! Most of our friends here are on a "2 year" or "1 year" contract, meaning they work for ASG (American Samoa government) for a year or two and get sent home. Unless, they choose to stay like our good friend, Adam! He is our next door neighbor who is the resident bat researcher on island working for DMWR (dept of marine wildlife resources). This means Adam gets to rehabilitate bats when they are brought in. He raises them with hopes to release them back in the wild. He recently got a call that a Samoan shot and killed a mother bat for food. On her, was baby Toa!! Only a few weeks old, Toa was brought into DMWR to be rehabilitated. There's no way this bat would survive without its mother. He can't even fly! Toa is a Tongan fruit bat, he only eats fruit. Right now, he drinks cows milk from a baby's bottle! It's sooo adorable! He's only a few inches long, no bigger than the palm of my hand!! I've been going over there daily to see him. I'm so in love!!! He's so cute! Not scary or creepy what so ever. A little furry face with little beady eyes! Haha! Anyone would melt at the sight of him with his pacifier. It's the cutest thing I've ever seen!