Letter to BATLINE

Kerryn Parry-Jones. 5th April 2001

Dear Folks,

I was at that meeting in Melbourne on the 24th January 01. However it was far from being a democratically run meeting with a free ranging discussion and a show of hands at the end. The terms of reference were extremely restricted, the result was predetermined and so there was no need for votes.

Parts of my letter dated 25th January 01 to Ms Garbutt follow:

"Unfortunately the structure of the meeting and the hard line taken by Mr Phil Moors as a representative of the Board of the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne predetermined that the meeting could not live up to these expectations. Mr Moors introduced the meeting by flatly stating that we were only to discuss strategies that would result in the complete elimination of flying-foxes from any part of the Gardens.

This is difficult task. I emphasise that, historically, there is no evidence that established Grey-headed Flying-fox colonies from an established site can be totally and permanently removed from the district. Extreme methods have been tried in the past (extermination shoots, high explosives, flame-throwers etc) and in the long term these efforts have failed. In the cases where the site has been destroyed (trees cut down or burnt) the colony has re-established close to the original site................................

........Actually the entire problem at Fern Gully appears to have been managed in a peculiar manner. The Garden's people appear to be so fixated on the damage to the vegetation that they have failed to cope with it in a sensible manner. One indication of this attitude is that our meeting was dominated by descriptions of the damaged vegetation (including a walk in the rain to view it) when we were all aware of the situation. This waste of almost half of our discussion time was inexplicable when we were under pressure to come up with immediate workable solutions to what has been found to be an intractable problem!

Then we were shown a list of the techniques that the Gardens have used to discourage the bats. None appears to have been set up scientifically and none appears to have been monitored correctly. Considering the acknowledged difficulties in even temporarily moving colonies from specific sites it was extremely naïve to expect any of these methods would have entirely removed bats from the Gardens and the surrounding locality. However scientifically collected information from such efforts could have been used in on-going work to shift the animals around Fern Gully – perhaps away from trees at greatest risk.

There appears to be have been very little effort placed on trying to manage the level of damage at Fern Gully. For example:

The plants there have not been individually assessed as their importance and how much effort should be placed on protecting each one.

• During the trials when mono-filament line was placed around the colony it was noticed that bats roosted on it rather than trees. There has been no attempt to try to reduce the pressure on damaged trees by designing alternatives for roosting bats.
• Dead trees have not been removed and replaced by similar specimens.
• Seed or cuttings have not been collected and grown for future replanting programmes.
• Undergrowth is left covered with urine and faeces that burn the soft leaves and will eventually kill the plants, when the damage could be controlled with daily hosing.

And so on. The sad result of the Board’s directive to the meeting on the 24th January was that a number of alternatives that could have been immediately used to mitigate the damage to Fern Gully were not discussed.

The Gardens have a mission "to provide the use of the botanic gardens for education, public enjoyment and tourism" but once again there appears to have been little attempt by the Gardens to manage the damage to the Public amenity of Fern Gully caused by the flying-fox colony. Most flying-fox faecal material is dropped outside the colony site when the bats are foraging, only a fraction is deposited in the early morning when the bats come back to the site. To get the build-up I saw on the paths through Fern Gully, it is obvious that they are not cleaned. The paths should be hosed each morning and this would not only reduce their slipperiness but the smell and look of Fern Gully and so improve the safety and quality of the Gully for visitors. This failure to manage the damage to the amenity at the Melbourne Botanic Gardens is in stark contrast to the situation at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens. At Sydney the colony site has regular maintenance (the paths and the surrounding vegetation are clean), the smell is minimal and the bat colony has become an attraction for international and local tourists.

The only short-term options that were acceptable to the Board and so discussed at the meeting were culling, and relocation ("virtual culling") of a relatively few flying-foxes to distant colony sites. Neither of these options will make a difference to the problems in Fern Gully and the surrounding area, as it is unlikely that either will effectively diminish the numbers of flying-foxes in the Gardens. (It is accepted in the scientific community that the Gardens site is an integral part of one panmictic population of Grey-headed Flying-foxes that ranges from Melbourne to Central Queensland. Any animals removed from the Gardens site could be replaced by incoming bats over-night). Both these options are counter-productive as they hold out false hope of a simplistic "easy" solution and stifle alternative more productive lines of investigation..............

Any short-term strategy to "save" Fern Gully must be concerned with making an immediate difference. This can only be done if the Board of the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne understands that in the short-term, the presence of bats in Fern Gully has to be accepted. Then the Board’s responsibility must lie in controlling the damage to the vegetation and the Public amenity of Fern Gully as effectively as possible......... "