RSPCA responds to case of cruelty against flying foxes in Marsden-Courier-Mail

A SHOCKING case of animal cruelty at Marsden has prompted a reminder to care for flying foxes like any other animal in trouble.

An RSCPA spokeswoman said bat carers responded to a call recently after two men were seen bashing a flying fox with a wooden picket on a local pathway.

She also said a recent drop in the number of calls to Bat Conservation and Rescue was unusual and that carers were concerned members of the public were leaving bats to suffer rather than reporting them to be rescued.

Bat carer and rehabilitator Denise Wade said the fully self funded, volunteer organisation responded to over 2200 calls for assistance for bats in trouble in 2010.

She said carers dealt with the aftermath of cruelty to flying foxes that most people preferred not to acknowledge and that some members of the community viewed with the same amount of respect they extended towards cane toads and cockroaches.

She said the public perception of flying-foxes was extremely poor because of a distorted and uneducated view that the forest pollinators were disease carriers.

``It is not enhanced when government relegate our native flying-foxes to the position of a pest species and fail to educate the community to the extremely low risk of disease transmission.

``Flying-foxes are just trying to survive and negotiate their way around a hostile, dangerous and modified human environment and none of this is of their doing,'' Mrs Wade said.

She said Bat Conservation and Rescue was a 24 hour a day service with a dedicated ``bat phone'' to take calls from residents.