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IWMC
World Conservation Trust |
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Bats/Gardens
in Australia |
Animals
"rights" activists have threatened to cut down one tree for each
flying-fox (very large bats) culled from the Melbourne Botanic Gardens in
Australia. The flying-foxes are damaging the trees in which they are roosting.
Some of the damaged trees are on national heritage register. Many methods
have been used to try to remove the flying-foxes, but none have worked so far
and the decision to cull by the gardens was one of last resort. The threats of
the animal "rights" extremists were described as eco-terrorism by the
gardens director Dr Philip Moors.
A representative of Humane Society for Animal Welfare, Lawrence Pope, said
"These are activists that don't care if it takes five years to kill the
trees... It will be the same number of trees as bats - if they kill 1000 flying
foxes, it will be 1000 trees... The Humane Society don't encourage extremists
but we can understand that people feel they have to take extreme action."
(Herald Sun, 21/03/2001, p.9). These actions are being endorsed on internet
discussion lists ("batline"), along with the more usual ways of
influencing decisions.
The species in the gardens has been the centre of management disputes for
more than a decade. As well as damaging trees the species is a pest to fruit
growers and it carries two diseases lethal to humans (causing four deaths in the
past five years). The species status is still to be resolved at a national
level, but around 360,000 Grey-headed Flying-foxes were counted in 1998, with
counts since then showing no reduction in numbers. The species' range has,
however, shifted south by around 750 km in the past century. The debate centres
on whether there has been a population decline over the past decade and, if
there has been, is it continuing. The national scientific advisory committee has
yet to make a decision on the status of the species. 
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