Smoke and noise bid to ban the bats
COUNCIL workers are using smoke and noise to try to stop a large flying fox colony expanding throughout Dan Gleeson Memorial Gardens.
Nearby businesses are fed up with the problem colony, which has been roosting in the gardens for years.
McDonald Leong Lawyers receptionist Emma Hewitt said the bats were “noisy, disgusting, smelly and destruc- tive” and the situation had worsened in recent months.
“We’ve had enough,” she said. “We even have had to get smelly sticks in here to try and block the smell in the mornings.”
Ms Hewitt said the situation had gone on for too long in such a populated area.
“Something definitely needs to be done,” she said.
“There has got to be health risk.”
Townsville City Council Community Health and Environment Committee chairwoman Ann- Maree Greaney said a large bat colony that a inhabited the Palmetum for several years had now been gone for 12 months after the council removed them using the same “fogging out” techniques now being used.
“This has been achieved through continuous actions by council staff working in the gardens each morning over many months using noise and smoke to disperse the bats,” she said.
“The area has been fully reopened for many months and the vegetation has started to recover well.”
The council is attempting to move the bats on from spe- cific areas of the Dan Gleeson gardens including the Pink Gardens, the children’s playground and the mini rainforest into the northeast side.
Cr Greaney said council would continue to monitor the colony as attempts to disperse them completely would be high risk, forcing the bats to resettle in other residential areas.
Fogging the bats out involves using fog machines which disperse non- toxic paraffin into the air.
“Most councils on the east coast of Australia have now experienced some issue with flying foxes,” Cr Greaney said.
The council has already spent $ 100,000 trying to rid the city of problem bat colonies.
JCU Professor in Zoology and Ecology Simon Robson said flying foxes were important to the ecosystem and contributed more to ecology in Australia than koalas.
“Unfortunately they are not loved in the same way,” he said.
“Patches of forest in town can be very appealing to them and they are struggling to find places to roost because we keep cutting down trees.”