Bat Issues | Kevin Duffy asks for trees to be netted against bats
THE trees in Cook Park providing a refuge for a colony of bats in recent months should be netted during future summers to stop them from roosting, according to an Orange councillor.
The bats may be gone now, but councillor Kevin Duffy said the row of trees on the Kite Street side needed protecting and nets would stop them from settling there next year.
"If we had the nets, they'd have to go somewhere else," he said.
"Doing nothing is not an option because over a period of time, they'll absolutely destroy the trees in the park, and it's an iconic park."
Cr Duffy said there were plenty of other places for the bats to roost and he wanted to see money allocated as part of Orange City Council's budget this coming financial year.
Orchardist Guy Gaeta, who has been concerned about the bats' affect on apple and cherry crops in the region, questioned the practicalities of netting trees as tall as those in Cook Park and did not think it would be a successful endeavour.
"How are you going to hold a net that big down when the wind blows?" he said.
Mr Gaeta believed the council would have far more success cutting off the bats' water source - the duck pond on the southwest side of the park.
"If they can stop the bats from taking a drink, they're not going to roost there," he said.
"I think that's the simplest way you can do it."
Mr Gaeta said forcing bats from Cook Park was unlikely to create a bigger problem for orchardists as most had netted their trees already.
Mayor Reg Kidd put up a motion last month to investigate ways to control the bats without harming them by upgrading an eight-year-old management plan and approaching the NSW Environmental Protection Authority and the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.
He also raised the idea of strobe lighting,
Last year, the bats forced Australia Day activities to be moved to the northern side of the park and visitors to the park this year gave the trees a wide berth.
Plan needed as parkgoers flee flying foxes in Cook Park
With families flocking to Cook Park during the Easter long weekend, the issue of the bats has once again become a talking point.
Mayor Reg Kidd said he went to the park on Sunday where he saw "huge numbers of people in the park" who had to avoid the area where the bats were.
Cr Kidd said he was approached daily by people who had advice regarding the issue from those who wanted to see the bats gone, as well as those who wanted to ensure the endangered species were protected.
"It's driving me batty," Cr Kidd said.
It's a public area, you cannot go and shoot them, you wouldn't get the licence and it's not going to do anything here.
Reg Kidd
One person who has no plan to return to the park while the bats remain is Parkes resident Tim Holt, who raised the issue with the council two years ago.
"When I first saw it, there was only one tree with about 100 bats in it, but now they are making a mess of it," Mr Holt said.
Mr Holt used to regularly visit the park to have lunch with his family until he sent Orange City Council a letter about the bats in 2017 and received a reply thanking him for his "uneducated and ill-conceived views of flying fox camps and the species in general" from a member of council staff.
"I was that disgusted with [the author's] attitude," Mr Holt said.
Mr Holt initially wrote to the council saying, "I have spent many lunch break [sic] in your beautiful Cook Park over the last 10 years but last week I was disgusted and shocked when I saw the trees are nesting stinking bats".
He warned about the consequences and damage to trees that would take place in the following years using the destruction of the trees in Singleton's Burdekin Park as an example of what could occur.
However, he also referenced shooting bats with a 12-gauge shotgun when he was a teenager and said "tell the do gooders to go to hell".
The council reply said flying foxes had established temporary camps in Orange since 2010.
"Generally by May each year the climatic conditions are too cold to support these warm-blooded mammals and they migrate elsewhere within the state," the letter continued.
It also went into detail about why the flying foxes were listed as a threatened species.
Cr Kidd said the council had a management plan but it was created eight years ago, so he wanted to approach the Environmental Protection Authority and the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney to discuss methods of dispersal without harming the bats.
He is interested in looking at strobe lighting, but dismissed people who told him to shoot the animals.
"It's a public area, you cannot go and shoot them, you wouldn't get the licence and it's not going to do anything here," Cr Kidd said.
Bats are back at Cook Park, but later than last year | Video
LAST year they forced Australia Day celebrations away from one side of Cook Park, but while they've arrived later this year, bats are expected to wreak havoc, particularly on the coming apple crop.
Mayor Reg Kidd noticed the colony had returned to the southern side of the park in recent days and estimated numbers as high as 1000.
Bats have been in Ploughmans Lane for some time and Cr Kidd said they were still there.
"They were in Ploughmans Lane, but this is a completely different colony," he said.
"They're mostly in the same trees [as last year]."
VIDEO: Bats in Orange in 2019 ... Bats in Cook Park
Cr Kidd said drought conditions could cause plants to produce more nectar, which might have kept bats occupied for longer this year.
He expected the only destruction in the park would include droppings, broken branches and a certain amount of noise, but he held graver concerns for the coming apple harvest.
Orchardist Guy Gaeta said losses so far this year had been a few kilograms here and there rather than tonnes at a time, thanks to crop netting, but his apples were about to become vulnerable.
"With us, we like to uncover them a week before harvest to give them a bit more colour, so they're creating a problem," he said.
"They're a pain in the butt - the best thing is there's only four to five weeks left and they'll be picked."
Mr Gaeta said bats created more destruction knocking apples from the tree than in the number of apples they ate, and the bats were larger this year.
"You can hear the wind go through their wings," he said.
He said orchardists were waiting for the state government to put another $3 million into the netting program - the last round two years ago, lobbied for by NSW Farmers and driven by Orange growers, meant the government met half the cost.
"There's people in Orange waiting for the go-ahead," he said.
"Some only covered half their orchard because they only had the money to pay for half the orchard."
He said the bats, which he estimated numbered 4000 across the area, still required scaring off regularly and lorikeets searching for food around the Nashdale area had added to growers' troubles.
"They have a beak almost a big as a cockatoo's and they demolish apples in their hundreds," he said.
"Every time there's a two to three-year dry spell, that's when they come."
Coastal food crisis keeps bats hanging around in Cook Park | Video
Thousands of bats are overstaying their welcome in Orange due to an apparent food crisis on the coast.
The flying foxes are hanging around in Orange, and other inland regional cities, when normally they would have returned to food supplies on the coast.
They are creating an unpleasant stench in Cook Park, damaging trees and fouling it with droppings and urine.
They are also damaging fruit with orchardists in the middle of the apple harvest.
Storm Stanford, a bat expert with WIRES [NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service], said the situation was the worst since 2010 when a major food shortage on the coast kept the bats in Orange.
Ms Stanford said the bats normally went to south-east Queensland in April.
“The fact that they are still in the Central West is not a good indicator,” she said.
She said she was not aware of a food shortage on the coast however she said it appeared the bats did know.
“It appears the food isn’t there and they are aware of it,” she said. “We don’t know how they know about it.”
Ms Stanford said in 2010 the food shortage led to a large number of bats dying of starvation however they eventually left Orange before the winter cold.
Ms Stanford said the bats were hanging around inland areas including Orange, Bathurst, Mudgee, Crookwell, Yass and Mittagong.
“They are in very unusual places at the moment,” she said.
“I feel for the people of Orange at the moment, but they are not alone.”
She said the unusually warm weather would also be affecting the bats’ behaviour.
Orange district orchardists Tim and Jayne West said the bats had been attacking fruit on their properties.
Mrs West said the bats were frequent visitors.
“[It’s been] every night for about two weeks,” she said.
“We’ve put up flashing lights in the orchard.”
Mr West said they needed to remove netting a few days before picking to enable apples to develop colour and that was when the bats struck.
He said the bats were not as numerous as in 2010 but still caused problems.
The bats were initially spotted in Ploughmans Lane this year before they roosted in Cook Park.
Orange Mayor Reg Kidd said council had a flying fox management plan and staff were monitoring them.
“We monitor fairly closely any damage to the trees,” he said.
Bathurst council has been awarded $38,559 in government grants to clean up flying fox mess and create a managment plan however Cr Kidd said removing bats was a huge problem.
“People are saying get rid of them, please let us know how to do it,” he said.
“It took years and years to do it in the Botanic Gardens in Sydney and it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
WIRES warns people not to touch or handle bats as they risked being bitten or scratched which could lead to infection.
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