Bat petition

[wendy]

http://www.otcs.info/bats/index.php

This is a petition to keep some very cute bats in Australia from being shot.

[wyandottecaver]

interesting. no information on why they wanted to shoot them in the first place. safety hazard? disease outbreak? wanna hear their guns go bang?

[wendy]

interesting. no information on why they wanted to shoot them in the first place. safety hazard? disease outbreak? wanna hear their guns go bang?

Here is an article I found about it. Culling by the way, means to thin out an animal population. Seems the town doenst want the bats in the park, so when they are roosting in the trees at night they will shoot them, in attempts to keep other bats from going there in the future.

http://www.singleton.yourguide.com.au/a ... 96220.html

poor little bats, they are so cute

[Margie Haven]

I signed the petition, thanks for the info....heartbreaking.

[fuzzy-hair-man]

To explain a little from what little I know about the problems fruit bats can cause:

There was a similar issue with fruit bats some years ago in a town called Maclean in northern NSW the bats roosting sight was near a school and this often depending on wind direction etc made the school close on a regular basis, I also think it was in some cases making kids sick, and being really distracting for the kids trying to learn for both noise and worse the smell (fruit bats REALLY stink!!) lastly the fruit bats were causing the death of a lot of trees at thier roosting sight which I think (could be wrong) was a small patch of remnant rainforest.

Hopefully that sort of explains why the council wants to deter the bats from roosting in the park, I'd guess if they didn't smell and didn't pose a health risk (which I'm not sure but they may, certainly a rabies like virus hedra?? has been contracted from fruit bats) and there wasn't the prospect of them killing the parks trees they wouldn't really have a problem with the fruit bats.


Generally in my experience Australia and Australians aren't against bats but I also think we have a lot less exposure to bats than some of the US, for example I've not heard of bats roosting in houses or under bridges here but we certainly have bats in caves and laws and access restrictions to protect them during hybernation and breeding. Fruit bats are the only bats I know of that have caused any problems for the general community and this would typically be in the tropics or sub-tropics, which is curious because I thought Singleton was a bit far south for fruit bats.

other info:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s727782.htm (says flying foxes used to range as far south as Sydney which was news to me) (<edit> reading one of the articles it says there is a new colony in Cabramatta which is near Sydney, shows how little I know )
http://sres-associated.anu.edu.au/batatlas/maclean.html About the problems in Maclean and the rainforest reserve.
http://sres-associated.anu.edu.au/batatlas/index.html A general fruit bat page for Australia...

PS: Personally I don't support culling, there has to be better solutions and a balance sought, but I can see the problems a fruit bat colony might cause so this isn't just people being ignorant and wanting to kill bats for the sake of it.

[wyandottecaver]

here is the reason for the culling it seems

Since I'm not there, can't say, but if in fact it is a case of environmental impact there may be justification for deterrance. What form of deterrance is of course debatable, We routinely cull deer and bison populations in the U.S. and even endangered elephants must be culled at some national parks in Africa. Senseless or uneccessary killing of any animal is to be opposed, but even culling is sometimes necessary, though in this case its hard to judge and jury from a hemisphere away

http://www.singleton.yourguide.com.au/articles/1100764.html
http://www.singleton.yourguide.com.au/articles/1083672.html?src=topstories

[fuzzy-hair-man]

<snip>, but even culling is sometimes necessary, though in this case its hard to judge and jury from a hemisphere away

I hoped you guys didn't think they wanted an excuse to walk down the street blowing away bats, and that there was a good reason behind it.

The prospect that the bats would kill the trees and then need to move on to another roost site is a very real one as happened in Maclean.

[wendy]

<snip>, but even culling is sometimes necessary, though in this case its hard to judge and jury from a hemisphere away

I hoped you guys didn't think they wanted an excuse to walk down the street blowing away bats, and that there was a good reason behind it.

The prospect that the bats would kill the trees and then need to move on to another roost site is a very real one as happened in Maclean.

There isn't another way of relocating them?

[fuzzy-hair-man]

There isn't another way of relocating them?

Yes, there are other ways...
The newspaper articles mention netting? the area, or a chemical which makes the bats feel insecure which could be used as a deterrant.
I think they vary in how effective they are and how expensive (Singleton is not a big place so doesn't have globs of money) going off the article on the Maclean thing it seems they used noise deterrants and this it seems was reasonably effective until they were told they had to stop after which the bats returned and killed the trees, presumably something similar could work for Singleton but I'm not sure how they would feel about gas guns etc going of all the time in the middle of town and how long they would have to keep it up or even if it would have to be almost permanent? The Maclean roost site was not near the CBD or very close to residential houses, the school is close so I'm not sure how they managed that, but my impression is the the park in Singleton is in or near the middle of town, but I'm not that familiar with Singleton.

I don't really know all that much about it, but suspect there's a middle ground between leaving be and shooting them. I think I remeber Katherine in the NT having similar problems but I thought that was part of a migration pattern so it was only for a couple of months.

[wyandottecaver]

No experiance with fruit bats, but here in louisville KY they have had several problems with black crowned night herons which are a colonial roosting bird....about the size of a fruit bat and with most of the same issues. In short, once they find a place they like...it's hard to get them to move away permanently without fairly drastic measures.

Many times contractors or "experts" are called in and given sums of money to try and humanely move them so people can feel good about kicking them out and getting rid of the noise and bird crap rain.

These efforts sometimes meet with success, sometimes not. this generally requires repeated efforts over long periods of time.... Thats how the contractors make their living :)

I'm sure the bats are much like us, they generally prefer familiar surroundings even if it's occasionally annoying...keep in mind they also need to be familiar with the local area so they know where food is....but once things get dangerous, it's time to go house hunting!

An interesting note, in the night heron case, they had initially moved from an isolated island in the middle of the river ( a national wildlife refuge) to the city proper because of an annual jet airplane and fireworks show that took place over the river during their nesting season....maybe singleton just needs a big celebration with low flying jets and a few million dollars in fireworks!

[Grandpa Caver]

From an emailed update I just received:

"Some good news on the fight for the Singleton Bats. The Federal Government has denied Singleton Councils application to cull the bats saying that it is not an acceptable way of dealing with a threatened species.

For a full story go to :

http://covers.ruralpress.com/frontpages/85.pdf

Thankyou to everyone who has supported the petition"