http://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/news/opinion/editorial/general/ruth-will-need-plenty-of-luck-over-flyingfox-problem/2612233.aspx
GOOD luck to Ruth Stuart with her flying fox problem, because she will need it.
An estimated 5000 grey-headed flying foxes have taken up residence in her front and back yards.
During the past two weeks they have started to strip the trees.
Ruth says they are starting to make a mess, “defecating everywhere” and generating plenty of noise.
She has attempted to scare the flying foxes away by banging a metal spoon on a metal saucepan.
While the flying foxes are not comfortable with her noisy intrusion, they have not moved on.
No one knows how long the flying foxes will call Ruth’s patch along Tamworth’s King George V Ave home.
Let’s hope the outcome is nothing like at Singleton’s Burdekin Park.
The flying fox colony there has been resident for years.
The council has spent thousands of dollars and exhausted every avenue to claim back the park.
The flying foxes have won and, despite destroying trees and forcing the yearly Anzac Day ceremony from the park, they have experienced little discomfort.
The grey-headed flying fox is a protected and endangered species and that ensures it has more rights than Ruth.
Her actions of making noise to scare the bats away from her own yard could be deemed illegal.
A resident on the Gold Coast last year was forced to front a court after she discharged a compressed-air horn in an attempt to get a colony of flying foxes to leave the vicinity of her home.
Experts say the flying foxes move into residential areas in search of food because of the loss of their natural habitat.
While the flying foxes have a right to exist and warrant some protection, history shows they can’t live in harmony with people in residential and public areas.
The amenity of a home and a park are there for people, not flying foxes, to enjoy.
As nice as Tamworth is, for Ruth’s sake and the residents nearby, it is hoped the colony is just passing through and will find peace and quiet somewhere else away from civilisation.
