Not able to be predicted; change

RESIDENTS are worried about thousands of Little Red flying foxes currently roosting in an area known as the Tolga Scrub about five minutes’ drive north of Atherton.

Councillor Owen Byrnes from the Tablelands Regional Council (TRC) said “The scrub is being destroyed; it won’t be long until the wait (sic) of hang ing bats drag the trees onto the traffic lanes through the scrub. Should an accident or incident occur due to failure to act, I for one do not want that on my con science.”

Member for Hill Shane Knuth agrees.

“Most councils have found it difficult, time-consuming and costly to meet State government department requirements to en able them to deal with issues concerning bats.”

“Normally the process in re gards to management of bats is that Council are responsible for management and dispersal, how ever they do have to follow strict and onerous EPA guidelines set down by the state government.” “This makes it extremely dif ficult for councils to gain approval to be able to properly manage bat populations,” he said.

Jennifer Mclean the Director of the Tolga Bat Hospital said that the Little Red Flying-foxes will move on when their food source runs out “there are cur rently flowering bloodwood eucalypts, the flowering will end soon and then the bats will move on.”

According to Ms Mclean, the bats aren’t destroying the scrub Jennifer Mclean of the Tolga Bat Hospital says the Little Red Flying-foxes will move on when their food source runs out.

“If you look at the part of scrub last time they were in big num bers, it looks exactly the same, the bats are pruning the trees. It’s a purely natural phenomenon that some tree’s need

“The Tolga scrub is about 100 metres wide, the bats move around they started at the north ern end, then they moved to the central area on the eastern side and now they're on the Central area closer to the road,”

“We only offer them these little fragments of forest after all the local land clearing. There have been complaints about the bats since the early 1900s, they will move on.” She said

“They are the only animals that can pollinate on a huge scale. Pollination is the begin ning of trees reproducing themselves; it’s the most important service that they provide. In fact, these are the animals that are go ing to restore the country after all the bushfires.”

“They are performing the most important ecological ser vice and without them, the forests would disappear.”

According to a spokesperson from the Department of Environ ment and Science (DES) “The recent substantial increase in the number of Little Red flyingfoxes at the roost is due to a mass flowering of native trees in the area. Little Red flying-foxes feed on the nectar and pollen of these plants.”

“It is important to remember that the Little Red flying-fox is

highly nomadic species and a large portion of them will move on again when the current flow ering event concludes – which is expected to be soon.”

“Little Red flying-foxes are a protected species under the Na ture Conservation Act 1992 and play an important ecological role in pollinating native trees and preserving forests.”

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