Ahhh - but their apparent deep need to protect every creature is very superficial and is quickly forgotten when they themselves start getting troubled by pests.
These twits who say 'protect flying foxes' - there's not a single one of them who would tolerate pests invading their homes or threatening their livelihoods or their health. Flies, mozzies, fleas, mice, cockroaches, would all be reason enough for these people to bring out the poison baits or the insect spray or call a pest extermination company.
What's so different then, about flying foxes that makes them worth protecting? They're vermin, just like cockroaches and mice are vermin.
Nobody - not even the most dyed in the wool animal protectionist, would say we shouldn't control mice or cockroaches if they're in plague proportions. Yet when flying foxes reach plague proportions and start causing havoc by destroying crops, invading school yards in their hundreds of thousands, taking over public parks and kids playgrounds, and spreading disease, these animal libber types go all soft and fuzzy in the mind and apparently lose the ability to think rationally.
I like animals and nature - I have no wish to see the extermination of all flying foxes, crocs, dangerous sharks and snakes etc. But it's pure unadulterated stupidity to say that humans should never cull flying foxes that are in plague numbers and are destroying trees and crops, making recreation areas unusable, and posing serious health risks via the deadly Hendra virus.