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Flying Fox Wars

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My daughter is currently working in the outback of the outback Northern Territory. She spends days off touring around from her base which is 350km south west of Darwin. That is the outback. Saturday she went to an area supposedly pristine national park and on the tourist guide as a must visit. All she found was what she described as millions of flying foxes and a stench that was unbelievable. She said there was a lot of traffic coming and going but no body stayed for more than a few minutes after a two hour drive to get there. She emailed a photo where the trees and bats look like a scene from a horror movie.

I'm trying a new weapon for this war. I have been told that if you hang plastic bottles with a few holes drilled in the sides and with an inch of napthalene in the bottom near your fruit that it helps keep them away. (and its legal). Apparently something as stinking as a bat is odour sensitive.
 

Millions of flying foxes in a remote outback area, Nioka? Surely not!
Flying foxes are vulnerable to extinction....just ask any greenie!

Sinner told us in Post 39.....
They are only stuck where they are because you wanted your quarter acre with landscaped native garden and water feature and a nice view of the "naturescape" or whatever BS it is real estate agents are using these days.

Plague is rubbish. These animals are listed as vulnerable to extinction.

And Chops told us in Post 30...
I would bet that these areas that the fruit bats are in plague proportions are in areas that have been largely disrupted.

If you have areas that are high in food, but an intact system of habitats, I doubt you'd get the same problems.

Not that I particularly object to flying foxes living in national parks and wilderness areas. I mean, they play a useful role in nature and they have to live somewhere.
I'd much prefer to see them living out in the real bush, rather than in suburban areas where they pose a health hazard to humans, and foul up our parks and kid's playgrounds, and destroy fruit crops grown by farmers and backyard orchardists.
 
Hi Everyone,

I was just alerted to your forum and this topic in particular. Haven't had time to read more than half the posts, but it is good to see so many people up in arms about the way the Government protect these disease carrying flying vermin.

I thought I would bring to your attention a newly published website (2 weeks ago) which is just starting to expose the Queensland Governments overwhelming desire to keep Hendra virus Qld's best kept secret. I think you will find some rather interesting reading on hendraawareness.com

Whilst I haven't read everyones post in here and there may not be many horse owners, everyone that shares the concerns of these flying vermin should read that website. I would suggest you all support the petition and spread the word about it, the more signatures we can gather to express concern of the Govt treating this deadly virus with complete contempt for human life the better for everyone.

Likewise if anyone knows of any petitions or action that has been started by the farming sector, please let me know I would be more than happy to spread the word and support them. The more people up in arms and show of numbers then sooner or later the Govt will have to stop cow toeing to the Green vote and start taking action. People power people!

Happy Reading

www . hendraawareness . com
(without the spaces as I can't post the link and don't want to bog down threads with 5 pointless posts to do so)
 
Another case of Hendra virus has been confirmed today on Queenslands Sunshine Coast.
Since flying foxes are in huge numbers in that region, and are known carriers of the disease, it's reasonable to suspect the foxes of being linked to this latest Hendra outbreak.
 
The latest town to be plagued by flying foxes is Gatton in Queensland.
Gatton is in the Lockyer Valley, about an hour west of Brisbane. The Lockyer Valley is known as 'the salad bowl' of QLD due to the extensive areas of vegetables and fruit grown there.
Hundreds of thousands of flying foxes are camped close to a residential area, and are getting closer all the time, according to residents who are understandably upset about having to live with the stench and noise of the pests.
A large Lucerne paddock is right beside the bats camping area. Lucerne is made into hay and chaff for horse feed - the equine industry is concerned about the prospect of further outbreaks of deadly Hendra virus on account of the bats polluting the Lucerne with their excrement.
Meanwhile, thanks to the ridiculous laws imposed by a government who bowed to the extreme views of a handful of brain-dead greenies, the foxes can't be culled or moved on. The locals just have to put up with the noise and smell and health risk, and farmers have to put up with having their crops raided.

It beggars belief that anyone could be so downright stupid as to give full protection to flying foxes.
 
Yeah, these latest outbreaks are a worry... worth remembering that the death rate from infection is running at higher than 50%... I think it's about 7 deaths from 13 infections.

I get a couple on my fruit trees when fruit is getting ripe. It's enough to put me off fruit, knowing those dams things have been chewing and probably piddling all over the fruit and surrounding tree and ground.
 
It all boils down to one thing: need for radical Government.

As common sense and political correctness don't seem to be able to coexist.
 

I wouldn't be eating the fruit either, if flying foxes had been anywhere near my trees.

I get a few dozen of them in my garden in November when my Eucalyptus trees are in flower. The bats chatter and squabble all night long as they feed on the nectar in the blossoms. There's not enough of them to make a smell or trouble me with their noise. But they do concern me enough to make me avoid walking under the trees during the day, in case the bats have dropped any excrement from the night before.

Sooner or later there's bound to be a major outbreak of Hendra virus that kills quite a few people, rather than just the isolated outbreaks we've seen so far that kill an odd person here and there.
Maybe then the greenies and the government will wake up to themselves and start adopting a more responsible attitude towards the flying fox problem.
 

I'm wondering whether it may be possible for humans to get the virus from saliva or excrement on fruit that bats have been on.

I haven't been able to find any definitive answer on that so far. There doesn't seem to be any conclusive research and I'm thinking that it's possible, given Qld Healths performance, that cases of flu and similar symptoms, without direct horse contact, may have been misdiagonised, even by a GP.

This from Australian Biosecurity also seems inconclusive and of concern that they say 1/4 of bats have the virus.

...it appears that direct contact between flying foxes
and people is not a significant risk for human infection with the Hendra virus.

http://www1.abcrc.org.au/uploads/dc...62cbf7a055/docs/HotTopicHendraVirus260606.pdf
Click to expand...
 
In my area everyone lives on acreage, everyone has a horse or two, everyone has trees that are attractive to flying foxes, and the foxes are increasing in numbers every year.
The risk of contracting Hendra virus may not be high, but it's very real.
 
Whiskers said:
I'm wondering whether it may be possible for humans to get the virus from saliva or excrement on fruit that bats have been on.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering the same thing myself. I certainly wouldn't be eating any fruit from trees that I've seen flying foxes in.

I was told yesterday that in NSW you can get a permit to shoot flying foxes, but you're only allowed to shoot six. I don't know if that's correct, but if it is, what a damn stupid law. I can just imagine some poor farmer copping hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage to his crops, and only being allowed to shoot six foxes in an effort to move them on.

Pests like flying foxes and birds can be moved on if you keep sustained pressure on them. In Central Queensland we'd get mobs of five or six thousand brolgas eating our wheat crops and stomping them flat on the ground. It was illegal to shoot them but we shot hundreds of them anyway. We made no impression on their numbers, but after a week or so of getting the hell shot out of them and seeing their dead mates lying around the paddock, they usually went somewhere else.
 
I was watching Landline on ABC TV yesterday. An farmer from Stanthorpe in QLD said he'd been forced out of fruit growing and into vegetable growing because fruit farming was no longer viable. He listed various reasons, one of them being that flying foxes had destroyed an estimated 55% of his last fruit crop.
 

But its a precious animal and didnt you hear they are on the verge of extinction??? How could you kill something so cute? there lives are just as important as ours.

(greeny sarcasm voice switched off)
 
Which party at the next election will declare war on flying foxes.

I must remember to get one going for the next election. May just find enough people sich enough of these vermin to get a senate seat for the "Ban flying foxes" party to hold the balance of power.

The little 'Bs" are devastating my whole fruit crop despite efforts " on the brink of being illegal" to correct the problem. Lemons and limes are no problem to them. The sheer weight of numbers wreck the trees. I have never seen them this bad.
 
I have taken the next step in the battle to beat the vermin. There are a whole new range of dwarf fruit trees available now. I have planted dwarf peaches, nectarines, mango, avocardo, custard apple, persimmon, citrus and fig. These will be covered at fruiting time so that the little Bs will starve to death, looking in but not getting a feed.
 
With the news that a dog has now contracted the Hendra virus it is time to gather the troops and regain control over these rodents.

For anyone that wants to try out a remedy that appears to work. Try spraying napthalene around potential bat invasion sites. I have been using napthalene flakes in bottles (coke bottles with a few holes drilled in the sides) around the fruit trees. It seems to work to a degree. Worth a try.
 
That worked well for me with bats/birds/possums getting into my unripe passionfruit.

Bats around here are a huge problem when various neighbouring huge mango trees are fruiting. Just nothing we can do about putting napthalene into these trees unfortunately.
Campbell Newman is saying the bats should be moved away by whatever means works.
Go, Campbell. Plenty of votes in this.
 
Maybe Bob Brown's puppet Julia can fund a breeding program to produce more fruit bats for release into the wild to repopulate the supposedly dwindling endangered population. All that fruit can be commandeered from our food production industry. Not like exporting it for sale was going to help the farmers or the economy, right?
 
There is no simple answer to all this.

QVet are spooked about the results from the dog.

Bats assist pollination/flowering.

They are a pain in the ass.

Time to be guided by science, and let our neanderthal fears simmer.

gg
 
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