5th - 31st May

 · Letter to BATLINE. Allen McIlwee. 9th May, 2001

Dear Batliners

I spoke with Lawrence Pope of the Humane Society for Animal Welfare today, and got the run down from him what is happening in the Gardens. There is some good news and bad news. The good news is the culling has been temporarily suspended. The bad news is that Lawrence believes there are only around 1,000 or so flying foxes left in the Gardens. Whether that means most bats have flown north for the winter or that the Gardens has actually killed 2,000 - 4,000 of its resident bats + 000's of migrants is unclear.

Kathy your explanation of why Moors is reluctant to cull more bats is spot on..... "the culling is kept at bay, on a day-to-day level, by a small group (half a dozen) of HSAW people by their ability to walk into, and out of, Fern Gully EACH night. They even inform Moors of their intensions - yet his Security (stand -over) guards cannot stop this movement. It seems Moors is reluctant to recommence shooting as long as these 'guys' are in the grounds. They are quietly spoken and have immediate contact with TV stations, and this seems to guile Moors"

According to Lawrence, the distruption they have caused has been substantial. This combined with the serious threat of vandalism and the increasing political pressure and condemnation (esp. from the scientific community) has been enough to stop them. However, the Gardens has not officially acknowledged that they have stopped the culling, nor have they made any pledge not kill bats in the future. For this reason, we need to keep up the pressure.

Lawrence is organising a peaceful sit in on saturday. They are going to stay inside the Gardens until Mr Moors can guarentee to the public that no more bats will be killed. There will be media coverage of the event.

Many of you will be aware that a task force is being established to resolve the long-term management of flying-foxes in the Gardens. This will be headed by a steering committee of which Graham Mitchell, a top level executive in the DNR is in charge. This brings some long term hope and promise for the situation, since Moors will no longer be the authority responsible for the managing the problem.

 · Letter to BATLINE. Maggie Allmand. 10th May, 2001

Dear Batliners

I spoke with a senior scientist at Natural Resources & Environment (Vic) and they last did a flyout count on 2/5/01 and the result was 9000 GHFF. In addition on 9/5/01 I was able to count approx 500 bats in 5 minutes flying over a park in St Kilda which is a regular flight corridor. The Gardens apparently did a recent roost count and came up with a figure of 4,500 bats. Lawrence may have taken a roost count to get the figure of only 1000 remaining.

NRE thinks that the winter bat population in Melbourne may always have been underestimated because the scientist who conducted the surveys did roost counts only. Also they do not believe there is any evidence that there is a "resident" and a "visiting" population of bats here. Without tagging this
would be difficult to establish and this work has not been done.

It is thought that probably most of our bat population are relatively transitory. Incidentally the Mallacoota roost is now empty because the local eucalypts have finished flowering.

NRE regularly enquires of the MBG to find out if they are still culling but gardens' management will not disclose what they are doing, even to them.

 · Advisor resigns in flying-fox row. The Age. Penny Fannin. 15th May.

 · Letter to Mr Beazley, leader of the opposition. Gwen Parry-Jones. 16th May

Dear Mr. Beazley,

The Victorian Labor Party came to power on an "open and accountable" platform. This has not been upheld in their handling of the status of the Grey-headed Flying-fox, Pteropus poliocephalus.

In March 2001, the Scientific Committee of Victoria made a Final Determination to recommend the Grey-headed Flying-fox, be listed as vulnerable in Victoria. However the Victorian Labor Government has refused to act on this Final Determination. This is the first time such a SAC recommendation has been ignored by any Victorian government. The reason given for such a refusal, that the status of a migratory animal should be examined from a national perspective is not valid. As stated by Angus Martin, the Committee's vertebrate fauna expert since 1993 in his letter of resignation last week, the reason was flawed firstly because the Minister had accepted dozens of his Committee's recommendations on migratory species that were mostly distributed outside Victoria, (including the Black-browed Albatross, Blue Whale, Orange-bellied Parrot and Eastern Long-eared Bat) and secondly, the Committee was constrained by the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act to make recommendations on a State level and the Minister's suggestion that it should consider the bat's status nationally, was outside its charter.

Grey Headed Flying-Foxes have been killed each night since the 6th April, 2001 in the locked Royal Melbourne Botanic Gardens, in secret. Their killers protected by armed security guards and guard dogs. Philip Moors, the Gardens representative, in a press statement stated "I do not intend to give a running commentary on the culling operations. I will not be releasing details of when the operation begins or how it proceeds. Nor will I be giving out progressive numbers of bats culled." Strangely enough the policy extends to the DNRE as senior officers are also kept in ignorance of how many vulnerable animals have been killed. Not only is the Government failing to keep the "open and accountable" promise it made on election night, but it also appears to be failing to make the Garden's accountable to anyone, including itself.

The secrecy permitted by the Government surrounding the killing has serious scientific ramifications. At Wambina we have been micro-chipping and banding Grey-headed Flying-foxes for the past ten years. We have been collating information on the sight and deaths of these animals to plot migratory patterns and other vital information. We have requested access to the bodies of the cull victims to identify any of "our" animals without success. Ten years work is jeopardized by the secrecy and lack of "openness" by this so-called "accountable" Government.

Flying-foxes are a key agent in the pollination, seed dispersal and fertilization of forests. They are highly migratory and move in response to the food supplies at each colony site. These sites are located approximately 35 kms apart, ensuring that all the major forests along the East Coast are pollinated. In Victoria, habitat clearing is believed to have reduced the number of flying fox colonies to just two - Mallacoota and the Royal Botanic Gardens. The RBG is the only breeding site for flying foxes in Victoria.

The majority of scientists believe that killing the Flying-foxes in the Gardens will not result in their removal. As one group of flying-foxes move off (or are killed) another group will eventually replace those who are lost. This means that the Gardens has the potential to become a "black hole" where flying-foxes from NSW (where they have also been recommended for Vulnerable Status) and Queensland are likely to replace those killed.

Yours sincerely
Gwenllyn Parry-Jones

 · Letter from Lawerence Pope of the Human Society for Animal Welfare. 30th May

The HSAW continues to have activists covert and overt in the MBG every night. This means that for five months now we have had people freezing their bottoms off all night, sometimes soaking wet, avoiding guards and dogs, to protect and greys and to alert a stand-by team if shooting begins. This has definitety resulted in saving many hundred of greys from certain death. We have chased shooters out of the gardens on two occasions and will continue to do so. We will also continue to bring home - literally - to the `trigger pullers` ie those who make the decisions to kill, that their behaviour displeases us in the extreme. Far too often in the last century we have let those who hire others to do their dirty work sleep soundly and warm in their beds. At the very least they can now expect to be subjected to a rude awakening by us and probably after midnight. Terror tactics? There is no blood on our hands. We don't shoot defenceless animals in the chest for the crime of surviving the destruction of their homes...the greys are here to stay and they are most welcome to stay in our gardens botanic or otherwise. We will continue to do our best to protect them.