There are four mature mango trees in the garden of the old weatherboard house that my father rebuilt. My father passed away five years ago. The house and the trees remain. Mango trees are prolific in their production of the sweet, juicy fruit and when they are heavy with ripe fruit, the fruit bats would often be hidden in the dark leafy branches, eating the delicious fruit. Often when we walked under the trees at night when the bats were feeding, one would fly out and give a squawk, frightening us as much as we would frighten them.
Flying foxes, or fruit bats as they are known locally here in Queensland, have a mixed press. I see the bats as wild, free creatures. The nightly spectacle of thousands of them flying out at dusk in a massive colony like a mighty flock of huge birds is quite simply astonishing. To see thousands of them hanging upside down in the trees in the heat of the afternoon sun is also a sight you’ll never forget. How they stretch out their leathery wings and fan themselves cool. The constant squabbling that goes on as they move and flutter nimbly through the branches looking for the perfect position to settle in for a day of sleep. To see the little ones fastened onto their mother as she feeds, high up in the trees, is such an amazing sight. Once you hear a colony of fruit bats hanging out in a clump of trees, you will recognize the sound immediately whenever you hear it again.
The dark blobby mass on the lower branches of these Coastal Cypress Pine are thousands of sleeping bats.There are also a few hanging on the high branches on the top left.
The dark blobby mass on the lower branches of these Coastal Cypress Pine are thousands of sleeping bats.There are also a few hanging on the high branches on the top left.
Fruit bats are also highly valued by foresters and greens alike for what they do for the trees. No other creature is able to spread the seeds of the tall rain forest trees in northern Queensland as efficiently as the fruit bats. There are some excellent signs put up near where the colony spend their days by the Fraser Coast Regional Council in an attempt to encourage people to value the bats:
Fruit bats are highly selective feeders. They feed on fruiting rainforest trees and flowering eucalypts.
- Fruit bats keep the forest healthy
- Fruit bats keep the forest healthy
Fruit bats can spread 60,000 rainforest tree seeds in one night
After a long and drawn out battle between local people from both sides, the precious little remaining habitat for the bats has been protected. For now. The main objector to the bats was apparently the person who lives near the colony’s daytime residence, even though the bats were there long before the house was built. The bats are noisy and during the mating season they give off a strong odour. Not a wise move to build a house right beside a bat colony. But saving a tiny piece of forest where the bats sleep isn’t saving a habitat. Unbelievably, there are now apartments being built on the adjoining block of land.
New apartments being built right beside the bat colony.
I find it hard coming out here to Hervey Bay. Often very hard. Scenes like the one above are so common. In fact rampant. If the people in the single, old house have a problem with the noise of the bats, won’t it be the same for the new residents in these new apartments being built? Who do you think will win the battle when there are a dozen or so families living beside the bats? – The human residents or the flying fox residents? I suppose the big difference is that the residents vote, – but the flying foxes propagate forests and keep the world heritage rain forest on nearby Fraser Island healthy. Which do you think is the most useful?
Until recently I didn’t understand quite how intricately linked the bats are with forest health. One of the anti arguments is that the bats are killing the trees. The bats do cause damage to the tree crowns where they sleep, over time. Very often mature pioneering coastal cypress pine is the one to suffer. And there it is again: The dense canopy of the pioneer forest is opened and the next succession of tree life begins on the forest floor. How is it that these flying foxes know the forests secrets and assist in the plan, and we just don’t get it. We are learning through the effects we are now experiencing of climate change that we depend on forests as much as these wild, free creatures.
“Man did not weave the web of life – he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
Chief Seattle, 1854.
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Tags: Australian forests, Following nature's lead, Fruit bats
