Flying foxes moving off

Batemans Bay’s flying foxes are leaving as a result of Eurobodalla Council's dispersal activities and their own natural migration patterns.

Camps at the Water Gardens, Lake Catalina and around Heron and Albatross Road are now empty, and the loud noise and lights of dispersal that started in late June have nudged the remaining flying foxes to one location at the back of the golf course in Catalina. Council will now focus its dispersal activities on this area while maintaining maintenance actions at the empty camps. This continues to involve loud noise and lights, and under the right conditions, smoke.

Council’s Director of Planning and Sustainability Lindsay Usher says the natural departure of the flying foxes has made all the difference. "The flying foxes are already uncomfortable because it's getting cold here and their food is running out. We've made a bad situation worse with our noise and lights and we’re playing on their natural tendency to move north to their camps in northern NSW and Queensland where they know its warmer and there's food.

“The remaining flying foxes are now in one camp behind the golf course,” Mr Usher explained. “This terrain is the most difficult for our dispersal team to manage and it’s a large area, but we're buoyed by our results so far and will keep showing up before dawn to ‘nudge’ the flying foxes out until our dispersal license runs out on 1 August or our NSW Government approval requires us to stop.

“It is almost certain that the flying foxes will return when the weather warms up and food sources become available, and I’m urging the community to have realistic expectations about how dispersal works and the natural movements of the flying foxes.

“When they do return, we can’t predict in what numbers or where they will camp. Flying fox numbers are largely in response to the availability of food and there will always be a food supply in the Eurobodalla.

“It is important for residents to understand that while we currently have an exemption to carry out dispersal activities for the rest of the month, no activities can be performed when the flying foxes are heavily pregnant or with young, which is likely to extend from August to February each year. This is why we’re investing heavily in increasing the vegetation buffer zones now to minimise conflict between flying foxes and residents in the future.”

Flying fox dispersal activities will stop from Wednesday until the weather warning is lifted, anticipated to be later in the week. This is in accordance with the NSW Government approval conditions and for the safety of the workers and the welfare of the flying foxes.