Spate of baby flying fox deaths in Cairns a cause for concern

NATURAL: One writer says more needs to be done to protect flying foxes. Picture: Tom Lee

Spate of baby flying fox deaths in Cairns a cause for concern

DO MORE TO PROTECT BATS

THE spate of baby flying fox deaths around Cairns is distressing and disturbing. If David Attenborough’s nature documentaries end with people just gawking at animals on a TV screen then he has wasted his time.

The magic and reality of nature is outside your window.

Since 2013, local governments in Queensland have undertaken 149 formal actions to disturb and disrupt and “modify” Australian flying fox colony roosts.

How many actions have been undertaken to protect, extend and enhance flying fox colony sites?

To see flying foxes is to see ancient Australia as the megafauna saw it, it is to see the creatures that for millions of years created and continue to create this land’s forests.

Flying foxes are an umbrella species upon which many others depend.

They need and deserve our respect and our help.

A genuine commitment to permanent, large-scale colony sites and an education campaign designed by flying fox carers and conservationists would be a start.

The current regulatory situation is, for a first-world nation, in the second decade of the 21st century, ethically unacceptable and regrettable in the extreme.

Lawrence Pope, Melbourne

http://www.cairnspost.com.au/news/opinion/spate-of-baby-flying-fox-deaths-in-cairns-a-cause-for-concern/news-story/299988488385df7f4c1e77514076ec59