Beat bat disruption
FAR North Queenslanders have been advised to take four-week holidays and invest in home insulation if they want to cope with noisy flying foxes.
Macquarie University ecologist Tim Pearson has studied the sound environment of flying fox colonies, including when bats are at their noisiest and what course of action residents can take to drown out the loud squabbling.
Mr Pearson, who presented research at the National Flying Fox Forum in Cairns yesterday, said colonies were particularly noisy just before dawn.
“That’s when the animals have flown back into the camp from their night-time foraging and they’re all arguing and squabbling with each other,” he said.
“It’s a great alarm clock, but not so great if sunrise is at 4.30am.”
He said flying foxes were also at their loudest over a four-week period during mating season from April to May.
“The exact period varies a bit, for reasons we don’t understand,” he said. “But for that time, it’s noisy all night.”
Cairns Regional Council yesterday announced Arthur Strike Park at Edmonton for the site of its $72,000 flying fox care and release enclosure, which is hoped to attract bats away from the city centre.
Mr Pearson believed a much better option was for those living around the Cairns library colony to invest in insulation and doubleglazed windows.
His studies show this could cut the noise from flying fox camps from 65 decibels to 35 decibels.
“The effect is astonishing,” he said.
“Like most things, you’re usually far better off modifying the built environment rather than the natural environment.
“If you modify the natural environment, you end up on a highway to nowhere.
“It’s like all the councils that tried to disperse camps, and they either came back, or moved 1km down the road to somewhere less useful.”
The council’s bat enclosure will be built by the end of the year, coinciding with the bat birthing season when the number of orphaned bats traditionally increased.
It will be operated by wildlife carers under a permit from the Department of Environment and Science.