A PLAN to soften the impact of a flying fox colony on suburban Blackalls Park has prompted a flood of residents’ suggestions, from wiping the animals out to leaving them alone.
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Lake Macquarie councillors voted this week to manage the more than 1000 mainly grey-headed flying foxes – which began roosting on council land in 2009, and have returned every year – without culling or driving them out.
“Analysis of the site... determined that relocation of the flying fox camp is not feasible and could have undesirable consequences,” the council’s sustainability manager Dean Chapman said.
“[This] plan is focused on rehabilitating the land within the site to create more suitable flying fox roosting habitat away from adjoining residential properties.”
Mr Chapman said the council had started removing vegetation on the western edge of the bushland, along Field Avenue and Fennell Crescent, to form a buffer between the bats and residents.
A council survey found disease from bats was easily the major concern of Blackalls Park residents. Nearly all surveyed locals wanted a long-term solution to the animals’ presence, but only a quarter deemed it important not to harm them. Several suggested culling or driving the flying foxes away.
“Shoot the whole lot of the pests”, “Get rid of them, they stink!!” and “Gas them!!!!,” were among residents’ responses, while others called for the colony to be “relocated” or “smoked out”.
Others said authorities should “leave them alone”, and that they would “hate to see them harmed in any way”. Grey-headed flying foxes are protected and listed as threatened in NSW, and the Lake Macquarie plan will be carried out with financial help from the NSW government.
Blackalls Park is the first known case of flying foxes living close to urban Lake Macquarie, though the impact of Hunter colonies, such as the one in Burdekin Park, Singleton, has fuelled anger in recent years.
Blackalls Park residents have complained about the noise and smell of the resident bats, and the build-up of excrement on pavements, cars, clotheslines and in rainwater tanks. Lake Macquarie councillor Christine Buckley told the Newcastle Herald the council’s plan should extend to advising nearby residents not to grow trees such as date palms near their houses.
“In some of the surrounding houses I’m aware there are trees with fruit that could be attracting flying foxes to the area,” Cr Buckley said.
Earlier this month, a parliamentary inquiry initiated by federal Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon recommended a national approach to dealing with flying foxes in urban areas.
