Bats at Rockhampton Botanic Gardens moved on to other roosts

A nudging and dispersal program to move on flying fox colonies was recently completed at the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens.

A nudging and dispersal program to relocate flying fox colonies was recently completed at the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens.

Activities included strobe lights, long-range speakers with noise signals of birds of prey and machinery sounds, loud clapping, a deterrent scent and inflatable wavy people you usually see at car yards.

While the flying foxes are important for diversity, they can be destructive to 150-year old heritage gardens, which are among the oldest public gardens in Queensland, Planning and Regulation Portfolio Councillor Grant Mathers said.

“This is a nationally significant botanical collection and unfortunately the flying foxes are doing a huge amount of damage to that … as well as making it not the most welcome area for people to come and sit and enjoy their time, and eat and that type of thing,” he said.

“They need to move on.”

The program aims to encourage the colonies to move on to other roosts in the region, like the roost near the Lakes Creek Landfill.

“They are wild animals, they can go wherever they want,” Mr Mathers said.

“It’s something that is discussed all around Australia, they have these issues north, south.”

The colonies also cause chaos at the Rockhampton Airport, flying into the flight path of aircraft.

From January to March, there were 15 bird strikes recorded at the Rockhampton Airport; most of these were believed to be bats.

The council report did note Rockhampton Airport was working with Avisure and stakeholders to try and mitigate the issues of wildlife within and around the airport precinct.

The total number of bird strikes for the financial year to date is 26.

“This (the bird strikes) is a major concern for safety for everybody involved,” Mr Mathers said.

“Every time there is a bird strike, that aircraft has to be grounded and they have to go and search the fields to try and find the carcass and they have to inspect the aircraft … so that creates delays for those on the ground but also costs for the airlines.”

Mr Mathers said the nudging and dispersal program was ongoing and the activities were designed to deter the flying foxes and make the area unpleasant for them.

The program was successful in encouraging some of the colony to fly away from the Botanic Gardens roosts, with a 40 per cent decrease in the overall number of black flying foxes and a 90 per cent reduction in the colony around the Gardens Tearooms kiosk area.

Most of the flying fox colonies are now concentrated around the bamboo area at the lagoon.

The nudging has had to be temporarily ceased in this area as there is a colony of red flying foxes, which is quite rare this far south, and there are a lot in the colony that are young and heavily pregnant.

“No one wants to see any harm come to the bats, they are a very important species and we need them … they just don’t need to be here at the Botanic Gardens,” Mr Mathers said.

“Our officers do a fantastic job, there is a lot of legislation that is involved with this and a lot of boxes that need to be ticked and we make sure we adhere to those.”