By Sharnie Kim and Kier Shorey
Queensland researchers say they are surprised by how far flying foxes travel in search of food.Biosecurity Queensland's Dr Hume Field says researchers from Queensland's Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases stumbled upon the observation while monitoring a number of colonies for a year as part of a study on Hendra virus.He says little red flying foxes, in particular, covered vast distances, with one animal travelling up to 500 kilometres in a week."Animals that we had put these radio transmitters on in Gayndah, then typically they would go to Duaringa, as well and then Charters Towers and to Mount Isa," he said."We just see the same population of animals moving from location to location just dependant on the food source in that area."Undoubtedly it presents a challenge for the environmental authorities in trying to manage those issues."Dr Field says he was surprised by how far the animals would fly in search of food."Some of the flying foxes can move over large distances and often in a relatively short period of time," he said."I think we had trackers on 40 animals and we saw that those little red flying foxes moved from south-east Queensland right up to Cape York over a period of time," he said."One animal actually moved something like 400 or 500 kilometres in a single week."
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