Letter to the editor, ABC News on line:

“Regarding ‘Unwelcome bats just won’t beat it’, mere sensational reporting isn’t journalism.

This report is misleading, and factually incorrect.

The presence of starving, and stressed flying foxes outside their normal range is currently a result of famine in their natural range.

The famine is a result of rainfall affecting the suitability of their primary food sources of native fruits, nectar and pollen from plants.

Anyone or any organisation that does harm to threatened species protected under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act) could face prosecution.

I encourage anyone, including the ABC, who’s interested in understanding and learning what is happening in the real world to contact Bat Care Brisbane:
ph: (07) 3821 2341, email: info@bats.org.au, website: www.bats.org.au

Jerry Coleby-Williams Dip. Hort. (Kew), RHS, NEBSM, MAIH
Executive member, Queensland Conservation
Director, Seed Savers’ Network
Patron, Householder’s Options for Protecting the Environment
Patron, Queensland Early Childhood Sustainability Network &
Horticultural Editor, ‘The Organic Gardener’ magazine
26th May 2010”

Media Release, Bat Conservation & Rescue Qld. Inc.
Flying-foxes are suffering a starvation event right now in SE Qld with an increase in calls to our service for rescues for hungry bats.

Due to hunger there is an increase in the need for rescues as bats attempt to get food from the ground therefore we are getting more attacks from domestic animals. They also try to land in fruiting flowering trees near barbed-wire so we are experiencing an increase in our work load not only for the rescue but also in the intensive care required when bats are injured.

This is an animal welfare issue we want to alert the public to. Please assist in community awareness about this problem by passing this email on.

Thank you
Louise Saunders