Flying Fox Wars

Are you people serious about animals being problems?
















The common philosophy doesn't seem too different from the guy from Norway.

Chris: Are you trying to make a statement along the lines of "Pollution is such a big problem, so why worry about an animal-related problem?"

If so, we can just say that any problem is too small to worry about as long as we can find a larger one. Crime? Pff, why worry about that when pollution is a problem? Stop wasting money on police. Diseases? Pff, stop wasting money on healthcare, pollution is a bigger problem. Let's just stop worrying about any issue at all until the pollution problem is solved.

It's a strangely common argument to say an issue isn't a problem if a larger problem can be found, but it makes no sense. Multiple priorities often need to be addressed.

chrislp said:

Are you people serious about animals being problems?

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Two wrongs dont make a right so I dont see the point you are trying to make. A dog bites someone it gets put down. Foxes are an imported pest, they get 1080. What makes a flying fox sacred. They are in plague proportions, they are not the only pollinator of native flora. Imported honey bees have taken over that roll and are productive to boot. War on flying foxes. Attack is the best method of defence.

Julia, Spraying a solution of napthalene will deter the beasts from mangos. Of course it only sends them somewhere else.

My main point I guess is that these creatures are considered to be in plague proportions yet the images I posted show that the flying foxes are a small problem in comparison.

You both make fair points & my post wasn't entirely necessary.

chrislp said:

My main point I guess is that these creatures are considered to be in plague proportions yet the images I posted show that the flying foxes are a small problem in comparison.

You both make fair points & my post wasn't entirely necessary.

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Goodness, how unusual for anyone to actually concede such a thing.
Good for you, chrislp. I wish more of us had the maturity to reconsider.

Nioka, I've obviously failed to convey the size of the mango trees and the fact that they are absolutely inaccessible to me. They are very old and huge and every summer have massive crops of inedible, stringy mangoes which lie rotting everywhere and provide a nightlong feast for the screeching flying foxes every night for months. I need a much more potent solution to the foxes.

Julia said:

Goodness, how unusual for anyone to actually concede such a thing.
Good for you, chrislp. I wish more of us had the maturity to reconsider.

Nioka, I've obviously failed to convey the size of the mango trees and the fact that they are absolutely inaccessible to me. They are very old and huge and every summer have massive crops of inedible, stringy mangoes which lie rotting everywhere and provide a nightlong feast for the screeching flying foxes every night for months. I need a much more potent solution to the foxes.

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Hi Julia,

Perhaps a severe pruning of the tree might help it grow less quantity but more quality fruit. It may also lessen the number of bats per night if there are less fruit to fight over.

macca said:

Hi Julia,

Perhaps a severe pruning of the tree might help it grow less quantity but more quality fruit. It may also lessen the number of bats per night if there are less fruit to fight over.

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Well, perhaps it would, macca. But - as I've already made (I thought) totally clear - they're not my trees to prune! If they were mine, they'd have been totally removed a long time ago.

Thanks goodness the new Queensland government has a more intelligent and responsible attitude towards problem wildlife than Bligh’s Labor government had.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-04/queensland-puts-flying-fox-cull-back-in-farmers-hands/3932598

Your opportunity to participate in a government survey on how the population feels about flying foxes.
http://www.daff.qld.gov.au/4790_22042.htm

Yesterday I spoke to a couple whose house went completely under water during the Queensland floods two years ago.

Now they have a new problem just as they’re starting to get back on their feet – namely that an estimated one million flying foxes have set up camp along the creek right beside their house.
These people don’t have town water, only rain water collected from their roof, also bore water that’s unsuitable for drinking due to high mineral and salt content. They can no longer drink their rain water because their roof is showered daily by the excrement of the flying foxes.
They haven’t yet rebuilt their sheds and carport that were washed away. Their car sits outside and the paint work has been destroyed by the excrement of the foxes, which is extremely corrosive to paint work.

They can't sleep after 3am when the foxes return from their feeding grounds and spend the next 16 hours squealing and squabbling so loudly that sleep is impossible for anyone in close proximity.
The smell is appalling, and the risk of contracting a deadly infection from the bats is ever-present.

The bats are in such numbers that they're slowing destroying the trees along the creek by overloading the branches and snapping them off.

All in all it’s a bad situation that would have been even worse if the ALP government was still in power in QLD, with their ridiculous laws giving full protection to flying foxes, to the extent that people affected could not even take steps to move them on through noise or smoky fires lit under their trees.

The greenies who insist that flying foxes have more rights than people affected by them ought to try living under the conditions described above. Maybe then they’d come to their senses and realize that under certain conditions, measures need to be taken to deal with flying foxes and other problem wildlife.