My Flying Non-Bird

I must admit that when I became a wildlife carer, bats were not on my list of things for which I wanted to provide care! When the opportunity arose to do a course I thought "It won't hurt to learn about them even if I don't actually care for them!"

Leading up to the course and during the course I discovered how flying foxes feed over a range of up to 50 kms in a single night and during this time they would be visiting many trees in many different stands and thus transfer the pollen further afield than most pollinators do. This aspect means that flying foxes contribute to the health of our eucalyptus forests by maintaining a broad gene pool. Flying foxes drop pollin and seed along the way to and thus contriubute to the habitat maintenance of all other native birds and animals.

The grey headed flying fox is a threatened species and although the general perception is that there are thousands of them, they remain on the threatened species list because they by no means have the numbers they had 200 years ago or even 100 years ago and the number required to maintain the present numbers of flying foxes is on a fine line. The females are three years old before producing their first pup.

The dangers flying foxes face further threaten their species and thousands of flying foxes are lost during 'heat events' which happen when there are three very hot days in a row. Flying foxes are exposed to dying of hunger when there are insufficient native tree blossoms, their main food source, and during the years of low food availability the females that do become pregnant are more likely to miscarry or have premature pups. Loss of habitat, human interference during flying fox camp 'dispersals', vehicle impacts, fishing tackle, barbed wire and fruit tree netting all cause death to flying foxes.

(Rex is doing well and making up for weight lost during his hours waiting for rescue and the first couple fo days of care.)

Woko,

the Office of Environment and Heritage has a draft Flying Fox Camp Management policy up for comment at the moment. I was so keen to read it and contribute to it until I saw the objectives.

All of the objectives are about 'protecting people from flying foxes' none of them are about protecting the flying foxes. It was heart breaking reading, because although there is mention of their importance etc to the environment and how without their pollination work other native species such as possums, gliders, koalas, and all kinds of birds would be negatively impacted the actual preservation of flying foxes is not one of the objectives of the document. No mention of preventing development near the camps but lots of mention of the possibility of 'dispersement' of camps if they impact the physical or mental well-being of the public. Even though the same people who would complain about the noise of flying foxes would happily sit in big shopping centre which has been recorded at higher decibles than a flying fox camp.

When the government departments who are in charge of our wildlife can not even list the preservation of the wildlife as an objective all really does seem lost.

I will make a submission, however I hold little hope for anything really positive to come of it, my little experience with government consultations is they are done purely so the government can do as they like but say, 'we consulted the public'. Was involved with consultations where there was an overwhelming sentiment in one direction from the community and that sentiment was in line with NPWS and the end result was. After consulting with the public....... and then followed by whatever suited the developers.....

A new member to our household.

This is Regina, Queen of the Black Flying Foxes.