March 15, 2021
Possible remedies for a bat plague in Blackbutt will be presented to next month’s South Burnett Regional Council Community standing committee.
At last week’s standing committee meeting, Councillors discussed a petition presented in late February which outlined community concerns about a large flying fox colony that has recently settled in trees along Hart Street and the adjacent Taromeo Creek in Blackbutt.
The petition – signed by “a substantial” number of residents according to CEO Mark Pitt – was forwarded to Council by Member for Nanango Deb Frecklington.
Mr Pitt opened discussions by telling the meeting he had experienced similar problems with flying foxes during his previous position as North Burnett Regional Council’s CEO.
Between 2011 and 2014, as many as half a million flying foxes had descended on Gayndah and the NBRC spent more than $500,000 trying to address the problem.
Mr Pitt said regulations protecting the animals meant options for dealing with them were limited.
Cr Scott Henschen said there were 65 species of flying foxes worldwide. Australia was home to seven of these, and Queensland had three.
Cr Henschen said apart from being a source of deadly lyssavirus and Hendra virus, bats were also destructive pests for many rural producers – particularly stonefruit growers – but regulations limited the options to deal with them.
Cr Kathy Duff agreed, saying a problem that erupted in Proston in 2018 when a large colony of red flying foxes descended on the town meant residents had few options except to live with the infestation for six months until the colony moved on.
Deputy Mayor Gavin Jones said unlike Proston – where the bats had settled in an area of protected scrub away from the town’s CBD – the current situation in Blackbutt was more serious.
“There’s people living along the edge of Taromeo Creek that are going insane,” Cr Jones said.
The Blackbutt colony was right on the edge of town and residents in houses directly under trees occupied by the bats were suffering extreme noise and problems with bat faeces.
He asked officers to take any possible actions as quickly as they could to assist affected residents.
General Manager Peter O’May told the meeting Council officers were currently assessing the Blackbutt colony to determine its age, whether or not it had recently expanded and possible options for dealing with it.
He said a preliminary report would be brought back to April’s Community standing committee.
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