Greater research needs to be made into the behaviour of flying foxes in order to better understand, manage and develop coexistence with the species, says Southern Downs Regional Councillor Vic Pennisi.
Cr Pennisi said he did not have all the answers to Warwick’s flying fox issue, but said the problem would continue to arise year-after-year until better methods and information were made available.
His comments came after more than a week since Council gained a State Mitigation Permit to move on the Little Red Flying Foxes from behind Hamilton Oval.
A series of sounds and fear techniques have been used by Gold Coast firm Nature Call, who have successfully moved the bats.
But the colonies remain an issue, with many taking up roosting further downstream and near the Allman Park Racecourse.
Calls have now been made to cull the protected species, in a bid to ensure local horses remain safe from the transfer of Hendra Virus.
“This is an issue across all of Australia and all levels of government need to be lobbied to invest in greater research to enable better understanding of the behaviour of flying foxes, so that better methods to manage the species can be understood and adopted,” Cr Pennisi said.
“What is key in my view and as a priority, all research is combined by all levels of government and interested parties, so that, as a combined investment, repetitive duplication is avoided and a better return on investment can be achieved, followed by a better, well understood and robust management regime.”
Cr Pennisi said he was not against culling but said very little was known about how to repel the mammal, or even what attracts the bats.
“If we knew, for example, that the bat was attracted to a particular tree, we could plant a roosting habitat in a safe area to attract the bats there in the future,” he said.
“Further to this, we know very little about what repels the bats and how we could keep the bats away from certain areas, including farmland.”
Just how smart is the local flying fox?
A recent study at the University of Florida has answered an age-old question “how smart are flying foxes?”
Until now research had not been carried out to determine flying foxes intelligence.
University of Florida under-graduate student, Nathan Hall, took on this challenge and his results provide the first empirical evidence for human-like social cognition in bats.
Nathan was one of a core group of students working with University of Florida psychology professor Dr Clive Wynne, to explore intelligence in animals.
The theory of Dr Wynne’s was that animals must be domesticated in order for them to react to human body signals, and without thousands of years of human/animal co-evolution, an animal cannot understand the meanings behind our actions.
Nathan’s experimental design comprised two “bait stations”, which were opaque square plastic buckets with one side cut out, leaving an opening that the bats could enter but not see until they reached that container.
Inside each container a glass jar was filled with equal amounts of nectar or juice. One jar did not have a lid, allowing the bat to drink the reward, while the other had a screened lid which prevented the bat from getting to the treat.
One person would stand in between the two buckets and point to the one containing the jar with no lid. A total of six bats representing four species were used in the study.
They were each given 10 trials and needed to get at least eight out of 10 correct in order for them to “pass”.
Almost every bat, tested from start to finish, managed to reach the magical number of eight correct choices, something never before accomplished by any exotic animal.
