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|  Be gone stinking bats!
Bats are gonna be culled, and dealt with. Bat culling permits handed out - Weekly Times Now Quote: Bat culling permits handed out
May 14, 2012
BATS are in the sights of the new Queensland Government.
Growers will be allowed kill permits to stop flying foxes repeatedly decimating their crops.
Growers say they only want to open fire on "scouts" to deter colonies and that a "small minority" in Brisbane has hijacked the debate.
Animal rights groups, however, claim humane methods are the only viable solution.
The Newman Government has plans to overhaul the damage mitigation permit (DMP) system to allow faster approval and an increase in permit durations.
The new Environment Minister, Andrew Powell, says lethal DMPs will only be issued to farmers "as an absolute last resort".
The policy will focus on "huge congregations" in places such as Charters Towers, Gayndah, Barcaldine and Bargara.
Nervousness after last year's 18 Hendra virus incidents, and the detection of the virus near Townsville in January, has seen the discussion heat up.
Leading the call for a "serious culling program" is federal Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter, who claims talk is being dominated by a "clear-cut value system that puts the lives of bats higher than the lives of human beings".
Mr Katter said those seeking the protection of flying fox colonies were "sick and warped" and were likely to "really hate human beings".
RSPCA spokesman Mark Townend said advocates of widespread culling needed to "take the emotion out of it".
"Once you start culling, it's very easy for something to trigger even more culling than is necessary," he said.
Bats Queensland spokeswoman Jeannette Miles said culling had "never worked".
"It's incredibly inhumane," she said. "Only about 5 per cent of bats are killed by a headshot, the rest die very slowly.
"If it's not humane and effective, it's not acceptable in a civilised society."
General manager of conservation, strategy and planning at the Department of National Parks, Clive Cook said flying fox numbers did not warrant culling.
Mr Cook said flying foxes - a major pollinator of a very large number of native eucalypts - were largely misunderstood. He said encouraging them to move to new areas was the key.
Charters Towers Mayor Ben Callcott - who once said "we have got no dinosaurs and we should not have any bats either" - agrees.
Cr Callcott, who has previously suggested using helicopters to scare away the bats, has proposed creating a new habitat to lure away the colony that has roosted in the town for the past 12 years.
"We've tried everything in the book and it doesn't work," he said.
Council plans to improve a 931ha site 3km from the edge of town to attract the colony, at a potential cost of $1.5 million over three years.
But not everyone in town agrees.
"There is the possibility of a $100,000 fine for the first man who picks up a gun and shoots a bat," Cr Callcott said.
"People say to me, if a hundred of us go there, they won't know who to fine. I won't be a party to that."
Cr Vic Pennisi, from Stanthorpe, said farmers in the region couldn't afford most human mitigation techniques, but were willing to try to find a balance.
"Most of them are saying they would be happy to adopt humane methods of control, if they can be told what they are," he said.
Bundaberg Fruit and Vegetable Growers spokesman Peter Hocking said while non-lethal options had their "merits", they also had a number of "cons".
He said growers were left with the option of using firearms to deter scouts.
"It's a critical part of crop protection," he said.
"It's really only for five or six weeks of peak harvest season that we need the damage mitigation permits."
Stanthorpe vineyard owner Angelo Puglisi, 68, said the debate was being overrun by a "minority group".
"You've got to be able to stand up to the people who say, 'oh the poor little things, they're almost extinct'," he said. "Is it going to take the death of half a dozen human beings before they do something about it?"
Mr Puglisi said farmers would only shoot scouts as a last resort.
"Many years ago, we used to go out with the gun club - responsible people with guns - and you just shot and shot and shot until they took off and went back to wherever they came from," he said.
"Sure you killed quite a few, you destroyed a few, but you got them to leave the area."
He said growers didn't want to "go around killing animals for nothing". "We're not murderers," he said.
The Federal Government yesterday announced it would hand decision-making to the states, giving the Queensland government the ultimate power to sanction the removal or dispersal of problem bat camps without first securing Commonwealth permission.
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke said the proposal would remove unnecessary duplication but conservationists warned the second layer of bureaucracy was mechanism for protection.
Queensland Conservation Council chairman Simon Baltais said flying foxes were increasingly encroaching on urban areas due to habitat destruction and said simply trying to move them on was a "short-term fix".
"(The proposal) just speeds up a solution that's not going to work and pushes the problem on to somewhere else," Mr Baltais said.
| The World Today - Qld to allow culling of native bats 14/05/2012 Quote:
ELEANOR HALL: The Queensland Government is set to allow the culling of flying foxes in towns, as residents fear the spread of the deadly Hendra virus.
The new Environment Minister, Andrew Powell, says the government will allow faster approval of permits, but opponents say killing the native animals is a step too far, as Nance Haxton reports.
NANCE HAXTON: The native flying fox is nomadic, going where flowering trees and fruits provide an abundant food supply. But these days bats stay longer in places where the goings good, rather than moving on as the seasons change.
The town of Gayndah west of Brisbane is bearing the brunt of that change.
North Burnett mayor, Don Waugh, says a colony of more than 300,000 bats has lived in Gayndah for the past three years, and has resisted all attempts to move them on.
DON WAUGH: It's not a case of mass shooting, if there's a more humane way, people will be quite prepared to take it. But at this stage there isn't anything that has been allowed under the present rules.
NANCE HAXTON: And the town is not alone.
Other centres such as Charters Towers, Barcaldine and Bargara are also struggling to keep bats and humans living happily together.
Mr Waugh says the bats are driving locals mad.
DON WAUGH: We've had them living in the trees and the school grounds to the extent that the children that go to school couldn't even use the playground because of the bat problem. So in school, out in the business section, out in the residential section it's been a total indictment of our situation that we couldn't do something about them more seriously.
NANCE HAXTON: So the Queensland Government is overhauling the rules and will now allow some farmers to kill flying foxes.
The new Environment Minister, Andrew Powell, says the kill permits will only be issued as a last resort.
ANDREW POWELL: Flying foxes are native fauna that are protected under Queensland legislation and it's about getting that balance right so that we can continue to have a sustainable flying fox population but also agricultural production.
Farmers will need to demonstrate that they have tried more humane methods of relocating or moving on flying fox communities from their crops. But in instances where those have been tried and failed, limited lethal DMP, or Damage Mitigation Permits, will be provided.
NANCE HAXTON: The threat of the spread of the deadly Hendra virus hangs over this debate, with 18 cases confirmed last year.
In January this year the virus was also detected near Townsville.
Mr Powell says the government will not allow any large scale culls.
ANDREW POWELL: The approach that a number of horticulturalists in particular are looking at is limited permits, and by limited we're talking in the range of 50 flying foxes per season.
NANCE HAXTON: Charters Towers mayor, Frank Beveridge, says the permits are vital for their community.
FRANK BEVERIDGE: Your average bat has the brain capacity of a four to 5-year-old child so they learn very, very quickly that if there's noise or non-harmful things, they quickly learn to ignore it. And that's the problem with every one of these removal solutions we've found.
NANCE HAXTON: But other communities in New South Wales have tried other approaches such as planting trees in alternative sites to encourage the bats to move elsewhere.
Bellingen resident Vivien Jones has set up a flying fox website, after falling in love with bats when she raised an orphan 25 years ago.
She says the local council there has managed the bats well, and she is outraged that bats could now be legally killed elsewhere.
VIVIEN JONES: I'm sympathetic to people who are in close contact with bats, they're not terribly, you know, suitable as close neighbours. But there are other methods and they must be pursued because this shooting of bats, that's never going to help.
NANCE HAXTON: And why do you think that is?
VIVIEN JONES: I just think it shouldn't be even considered because it's cruel, because bats, when they're in flight, they're quite a large target. But most of the target, well if you hit most of the target, you'll only injure them and they'll fall to the ground, be unable to fly, be in pain from the wound and starve to death.
There's only a very small part of them that you know that a bullet would kill them.
ELEANOR HALL: That's Bellingen resident, Vivien Jones, ending Nance Haxton's report.
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17th May 2011, 08:49 PM
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