It is always annoying when other people moralise about something that costs them no money but is a huge impost and in some instances decimates the income of another person by people pitching for a green vote. These people always seem very eager to use somebody else’s money or livelihood to make themselves and their friends feel at ease with their green convictions.

Flying Foxes and fruit do not mix and quite obviously you must have a control of one or you won’t have the other. The fruit growers in the Granite Belt are asking the Queensland Government to temporarily reinstate damage mitigation permits. These permits would allow fruit growers to minimise the damage to their orchards by controlling the number of fruit bats who scout for food prior to an invasion by the main colonies.

This is completely different to eradicating them entirely and fruit crops would not be wiped out if the population of fruit bats was properly controlled, as it should be. Reinstating temporary controlled culling would ensure that the majority of flying foxes remain protected and at the same time ensure crop damage is minimised.

The pendulum in Australia has to turn back to a rational approach to pest management. Something becomes a pest when you provide the environment for an abundance and imbalance of numbers that weren’t naturally there. Orchards were not around in pre 1800 Australia.

Obviously when you have 1000 fruit trees per acre, which does not reflect the natural community that was there in the past, you end up with more pests living off the increased food source.

It seems quite natural to take things back to manageable numbers; however the core of the argument for and against is that people don’t like the idea of destroying an animal when the reality is that effective pest control is essential if you want to eat Queensland fruit. No one queries the control of rats in the pantry, but few go looking for them in the scrub.

In the case of flying foxes, the question is, if you didn’t destroy them what would happen to them? Would they just live for eternity, would they retire into a benevolent flying fox old persons home where other flying foxes would tend to their every need? The answer to this question is that they would die from starvation or old age.

The same problem exists regarding the current problem with the kangaroo population in Australia. We changed the landscape and as a result the number of kangaroos impacting on rural lands in Australia simply exploded. Should we just let the problem get progressively worse or should we try to constructively address the situation?

There is not one person who wants to see the flying fox eradicated, we just want the population controlled. If we don’t properly control the population then we will end up decimating the orchard industry and we will be forced to import fruit into Australia from places with far worse environmental guidelines than we have.

 

David Allender

026277 3224

0428 196 340