Wet weather in Charters Towers has eased the fight against an unwelcome colony of bats in the city’s centre, but locals say it’s time something was done.
The town has been home to a massive colony of fruit bats and flying foxes for as long as living memory. The colony is usually estimated to be around 20,000 bats, but in recent times that has dropped to just a couple of hundred.
Charters Towers Mayor Ben Callcott says he believes the disappearance is related to above average rainfall depleting their usual food source and he’s adamant they’ll return in a few months. “The same thing happened last year,” he says. “They were dying last year and Sustainability Minister Kate Jones came to town and took some dead bats away to have them tested because she thought we were poisoning them, however we weren’t, and she determined that they were dying from malnutrition.”
Charters Towers Regional Council and the local community have been fighting to have the bats moved on from their roost in the city’s centre – predominantly Lissner Park - for years. In November last year, more than 700 people marched in protest against the bat problem and the State
Government’s lack of help. Council’s latest plan was to muster the bats out of town by helicopter, but even that idea has been knocked back, after initial verbal approval from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).
Mr Callcott says CASA later took back its approval, when Council pushed for written agreement from the national authority. He says Council has successfully used the same tactic on other bat colonies in smaller towns and grazing areas. “The fact was we simply wanted to fly into the park, muster the bats out and shift them to a new location,” Mr Callcott says.
“However, when CASA wrote back to us they said that we weren’t allowed to have the chopper within 300 metres of any residential areas,” he says.
“So that put the kybosh on it, because if we had a chopper plum in the middle of the park, we still can’t get it 300 metres away from the residences.”
Mr Callcott says the next option is to use sound wave devices which emit an unpleasant sound that only bats can hear. But he says Council has used the devices before, and residents aren’t convinced they work. “The Council officers who used it before are still here, and they tend to think that the ultra sonic sound waves are on certain plateaus, and the bats learn to fly in under and over the radar and roost around it.
“What we’re also concerned about is dispersing the bats into the mango trees and shade trees in almost every backyard in Charters Towers,” Mr Callcott says.
“We don’t want them over everybody’s water tanks and lawns. We’d rather have them in the park, at least then people have the option of going there or not.”
Resident Bev Riggs says locals are fed up with the problem, especially the smell, which permeates for kilometres around the park. And even though numbers are down during the wet season, the humidity and rain seems to lift the stench across the city. Ms Riggs brings her grandchildren to play in the park, but is careful to keep them away from the bats. “We still come here because we live across the road, but you have to watch the kids carefully,” she says.
“It’s a pity because there’s a lovely playground and duck pond too. You wouldn’t come here for a picnic, it just spoils it.”
The bats have been around since Ms Riggs was a child. “When I was young they used to invite the gun club out, and the bats are not silly, you shoot a few and they don’t come back,” she says. “But not much has been happening about it lately... the council’s wrapped up in too much red tape.
“I know I’m fed up with them, the smell gets though the air-conditioning and everything... there’s a motel across the road, I feel sorry for them, it must be really bad for business,” she says.
Mr Callcott says while residents have grown somewhat used to the bats, the park is generally avoided and the people of Charters Towers want the bats gone, no matter the cost. “I would guess that 98 percent of locals just want their park back, they wouldn’t care if all the bats were annihilated,” he says.
But state law prohibits the culling of bats. “All bats are covered by the same legislation, whether they’re the little, tiny bats of various species that live in caves, or our fruit bats and flying foxes,” Mr Callcott says. “I got a note through from the Department [of Environment and Resource Management] that said bats eat insects and pollinate crops. I sent an email back saying that the bats we have carry insects and annihilate crops...they’re a pest and they have a potential to carry diseases.
“Personally, I believe we need to change the legislation and we’re willing to sit down with the Minister and the Premier and work through it.
“Later this year when the season changes and the bats come back, we will start plugging in to the State Government again and attempt to get some legislation changed.
“At the moment the bats have got more rights than we have. It’s just not funny.”
