BATS OUT OF HELL
Thuringowa colony now in plague proportions
TOWNSVILLE City Council is expected to spend $ 40,000 by the end of the year shifting flying foxes in Dan Gleeson Memorial Gardens from one part of the park to another.
The gardens in Thuringowa are home to about 11,000 bats, with numbers skyrocketing in recent weeks because of additional groups of Little Red Flying Foxes moving in.
TOWNSVILLE City Council is expected to spend $ 40,000 by the end of the year shifting flying foxes in Dan Gleeson Memorial Gardens from one part of the park to another.
The gardens in Thuringowa are home to about 11,000 bats, with numbers skyrocketing in recent weeks because of additional groups of Little Red Flying Foxes moving in.
Council staff use smoke and noise to move the bats each morning, “nudging” them from one spot to another. Community Health and Environment Committee chairwoman AnnMaree Greaney said the council was nudging flying foxes in the Pink Gardens, children’s playground and mini rainforest to the northeastern corner of the gardens, where they could be managed.
“Attempts to disperse the Dan Gleeson Gardens northeast corner colony is too high risk as they may resettle in other residential areas, so for the moment council will continue to monitor the existing colony,” she said.
“The fogging and noise techniques are working in nudging flying foxes in the children’s playground away from that area to allow it to remain open to the public.
“Occasionally it is not possible to completely move on the flying foxes from certain areas such as the Pink Gardens, but we are persisting in reducing the numbers there.”
The council has spent $ 20,000 this year on bats and expects to spend the same in the second half of the year.
Cr Greaney said the Little Reds did not typically stay in one place for longer than two months at a time.
“The smaller group of … black flying foxes will typically stay longer term, but they are less destructive,” she said.
Thuringowa resident Courtney Chapman no longer likes to take her 15- month- old son Eli to the playground.
“The smell is just getting absolutely ridiculous,” she said.
“I used to go jogging through the park but now I don’t because I’m worried about their droppings and the smell.”
Ms Chapman filmed thousands of bats flying over her home a couple of weeks ago.
“We actually didn’t realise the extent of it until I filmed it,” she said.
“At the end of the day they’ve got to live somewhere … I just worry what’s going to happen when they expand through the whole park area. Before we know it they’ll be in our backyards.”
North Queensland Wildlife Care flying fox co- ordinator Dominique Thiriet said late last year carers collected hundreds of dead and orphaned baby bats after dispersal techniques were used during breeding season.
“The Palmetum wasn’t that bad of a location for them,” she said.
“Now they’re in an area that’s much more public, with much more traffic and more people living close by.
“Not only has the council not solved the problem, they made it worse.”