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Video Winged beasts drive Adelaide batty

Fruit bats are not native to South Australia but now several thousand have appeared, wreaking havoc in suburbia.


IAN HENSCHKE, PRESENTER: The flying foxes or fruit bat is not native to South Australia so it has come as a huge surprise to find them turning up here. First a colony appeared in the south east near Naracoorte and then late last month they starting appearing in Adelaide.

But what has started out as a tiny colony has now grown to almost a couple of thousand.

DIANE MYERS: They don't know why they are here let alone where they might go next.

IAN HENSCHKE: Why do you think they have chosen your house?

DIANE MYERS: I wish I knew. I don't know!

IAN HENSCHKE: This is a story straight out of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds but these winged creatures creating chaos in suburbia don't have feathers they are mammals.

DIANE MYERS: Well I got up to get the paper one morning before the Anzac Day weekend and I heard a sort of a chirping sound and noticed what I thought was a bird with a broken wing heading into that tree. Then I counted about a week later about counted about 34 and I told my husband and he said you must be crazy, you do not get bats in South Australia, you don't get bats in pencil pine.

IAN HENSCHKE: But it now seems you do and the pencil pine has become a beacon for the bats, it's the height of a four storey building and its packed to its pinecones with hundreds and hundreds of bats. So many have moved in they have now spread to other trees in the garden.

DIANE MYERS: The increase in numbers has been fairly quick. At first there were say 50 and last Thursday night there were three people here and they counted they said 1000.

IAN HENSCHKE: So you've got 1000 bats in the tree. Are they driving you batty?

DIANE MYERS: Well they are. Because they are actually mammals, there are 1000 pooing and weeing mammals and I do not seem to be able to get any idea of how to contend with it other than to have somebody come into help me clean up the droppings.

You've got to wash them off the cars and of course the paths are all covered with stuff which gradually is going to get clomped inside the house so I'm not very happy about that.

IAN HENSCHKE: And the problem is growing day by day.

DIANE MYERS: Overnight this is the residue of their last night's feed I suppose.

IAN HENSCHKE: The numbers in the colony according to to the Department of Environment and Heritage could have almost doubled in the last week.

JASON VAN WEENAN, ECOLOGIST: I estimate there is between 1000 and 2000 but I'd certainly like to get another count happening to get another estimate on the population size that would be fantastic.

IAN HENSCHKE: Ecologist Jason is astounded by what he seen. This is the first fruit bat colony to appear in Adelaide and he says the bats could be here to stay and if they are just visiting we should be prepared for a return visit next year.

JASON VAN WEENAN: There's certainly a lot of food for them in Adelaide, there's lots of plantings. We are getting feedback that they are into the fruits on date palms and lilli pillis, and there's lots of flowering gums out at the moment, lemon scented gums are flowering and they are really enjoying those.

The longer they stay the higher the likelihood that they will stay all winter and so I guess that is part of what we will look into, is how long they stick around for.

IAN HENSCHKE: But Diane Myers certainly doesn't want them to stock around her house. She's a divorce lawyer and she's used to dealing with difficult situations.

But the best she can come up with to try to evict the hundreds and hundreds of unwanted urinating, defecating, screeching bats from her backyard is to bang two dust pans together to disrupt their day time sleep but when they fly up they send down more showers of droppings and urine.

DIANE MYERS: I've gone to the council on the health issue and all I've got there is sympathy.

IAN HENSCHKE:These winged mammals are normally found in the subtropical and temperate forests and rainforests of the east coast. They eat fruit, pollen and nectar and they are amongst the biggest bats in the world.

The latest scientific research done at the University of Queensland shows they are related to limars and primates making them mans closest relative on the Australian continent. And that could explain why even when they are a pest some people tend to have a fondness for them.

GWEN EVANS, NEIGHBOUR: I think they are absolutely wonderful but certainly not in my backyard thank you. No, they are glorious.

IAN HENSCHKE: Gwen Evans lives over the back fence from the colony and as a former Sydneysider she thinks the appearance of the bats is a sign that words got out about Adelaide.

GWEN EVANS: So they are obviously telling their New South Wales and Victorian friends that it is a pretty good place to live in Adelaide.

IAN HENSCHKE: Scientists think the damage to food sources by the recent floods in Queensland and northern New South Wales could be part of the reason for the new arrivals but they say the main reason is the general loss of habitat on the east coast. In the past decade alone grey headed flying fox numbers have fallen by 30 per cent and they have dropped from millions a century ago to just 300,000 today.

They are moving into areas where they have never been before and as a result farmers and orchardists have come into conflict with the them.

Although they are now protected shooting was permitted in Queensland into the early 1990s and it is still allowed under licence in New South Wales.

The Environment Department here says it will try to move the colony by disturbing them next week but that may not make them leave the state.

JASON VAN WEENAN: The process they are going through in Victoria is learning to live with colonies and it is something which I imagine we will have to do in South Australia if this trend continues.

IAN HENSCHKE: And if they do decide to settle here perhaps we should be prepared for a long stay. Once they establish a colony they don't move on. The established colonies on the east coast have been in use for more than 100 years and that's not good news if they set up in your backyard.

And if you do see any fruit bats don't disturb them contact the Department of Environment and Heritage.

7.30 South Australia