Fancy having to make your way through feces and vomit every time you want to leave the house.
That’s the fate of people who share their property with flying foxes.
In northern Queensland, one community has finally convinced the flying mammals to find a new home, after seven years of putting up with thousands of them.
Houses close to the colony in North Eton, south west of Mackay, were covered in bat droppings, and children couldn’t play in the yards because the smelly feces were everywhere.
Each weekend, people wanting to use the nearby bowling club had to wipe the bowls clean, and the smell was unbearable.
But council didn’t allow residents to get rid of the bats, because flying foxes are protected.
It is illegal to kill or significantly disturb them.
Usual acceptable methods to deter them, like bright lights, noise or mist didn’t have any effect.
The bats were there to stay.
Finally, after a long struggle with their local council, resident Jack Long says they received permission to chop down the trees the bats were living in, while those were out feeding.
“These trees had to be cut down and lopped over night time, because if it was done in the day time it would put too much stress on the flying foxes and they might drop dead.”
Twice the bats tried to return, but finding their trees gone, they have now moved on permanently to a non-residential area.
Hungry flying foxes wipe out lychee crop
It’s not only residents who are having a hard time with bats, fruit growers have also had their share of trouble with them.
Flying foxes feed primarily on nectar, but the heavy rain this spring washed all nectar out of blossoms.
That’s why the hungry bats have been plundering fruit orchards instead.
Growers in the Mackay district estimate that more than 150 tonne of lychees have been eaten by flying foxes and parrots.
Tibby Dixon from Sarina south of Mackay says he lost he lost about 90 per cent of his crop.
“Most people in the Sarina district had a great crop, until the rain started in late October and with all the rain came the marauding flying foxes and parrots, and some orchards were totally wiped out.”
The Australian Lychee Growers Association says the Mackay, Townsville and Cairns regions usually produce between 30 and 40 per cent of Queensland’s lychees.
Tibby Dixon says there is going to be a shortage of lychees and they can’t export the fruit they had planned to.
“In a normal year we get about five to ten per cent damage, and this year it was about 90 per cent damage.”
He says he would prefer the government allowed farmers to protect their crop, instead of bats.
“Up until a few years ago we were allowed to get a mitigation permit and we were allowed to protect out crop by getting the scouts.
“And if you get the scouts you stop them from telling the others to come back and have a free feed.
‘But at the present we are not allowed to do that.”
And with less to harvest, it also affected the number of seasonal jobs the lychee harvest creates.
“The community loses out.
‘We’d normally have between 40 to 50 pickers a year, so there are 40 to 50 pickers that haven’t got a job.”
Story on ABC website: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2010-12-25/battling-bats/6192040
Longer related interview on ABC Rural: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-01-05/lychee-harvest-decimated-by-flying-foxes/6192056