Spread of views on flying foxes Locals in bat policy group

TWO members of the Charters Towers community have been appointed to the Flying Fox Advisory Committee.

Snow Hearne and Justin Van Wijk were selected to represent the town alongside two members of the council, two council officers and representatives of the Member for Traegar, the Department of Environment and Science and the CSIRO.

Last month the council decide to establish the committee in response to an invasion of bats in the town and appointed Mayor Liz Schmidt as chair.

“It’s been an ongoing issue for a very long time,” Cr Schmidt said. “We need to as a community figure out how we deter them from coming and how we manage when they come.”

Cr Schmidt was pleased with the community members elected to the committee.

“The council believed they were the ones to best represent the community,” she said.

“Snow is involved in the Flying Fox Action Group and Justin gives a little bit of balance on the other side as he does some caring for bats.”

The Flying Fox Advisory Committee will provide advice, advocacy, reporting, feedback and recommendations to the council, groups, state agencies and the community.

“This committee will allow us to work together,” Cr Schmidt “We can inform council about the community’s aspirations and expectations and engage with the broader community during the development of future policies and management strategies.”

The committee will look at establishing a long- term plan rather than responding with a knee- jerk reaction to the issue.

“Council are making a plan moving forward so we don’t have to deal with this for the next 100 years,” Cr Schmidt said. “We want to prevent them from thinking ( Charters Towers) is a nice place to live.”

DES in December estimated there were at least 150,000 flying foxes in Charters Towers.

“The bats come and go seasonally but we still have more here than we usually have this time in the year because of significant flowering on the gumtrees,” Cr Schmidt said.

Ms Hearne said she was glad to be on the committee.

“I’m wanting to remove the flying foxes or cull flying foxes,” she said. “Justin likes the flying foxes so it’s going to be good to have views from both sides.”

Ms Hearne plans to host an awareness meeting to educate the community and visitors on flying foxes with a James Cook University expert.

“Just because you come to Charters Towers doesn’t mean you’re going to die from some virus,” Ms Hearne said.

She said people could only become infected by the viruses the bats carry if they were scratched or bitten.

“Word of mouth is a big thing and we want to welcome tourism back into the town.”