It’s just so difficult to figure out what to write about. I see the News headlines, I hear the talk about the workplace, I see the number of people losing their jobs, their homes, their minds and I wonder, how does this become normal? I still don;t know the answer to that one.

Here is one from left field instead. Bats. Yep, cute little buggers that don’t smell particularly nice.

I read a post from a guy I play online chess against stating how much he dislikes bats due to what he admitted was the minimal chance of being bitten, contracting rabies and dying. He also admitted how stupid that was, being something he has possessed for many years, and he then told us how he was feeling much better about them after feeling embarrassed and did some research about them.

Pteropus poliocephalus – mother and baby

I did some substantial research about this particular endangered species (shown above) in my neck of the woods as a university assignment for an Ecology unit. These guys rock. Massively important pollinators that have become endangered due to urban sprawl and land clearing for agriculture reducing the number of flowering eucalypt trees available for them to feed from. They are nectar eating bats who spread pollen over large areas due to their foraging. Now orchardists are finding these specific bats are raiding their orchards. Why? Not enough of their natural food source left available. So these orchard owners are applying for licences to cull them. An endangered species. Yep, that makes sense.

And there is the town that has a substantial colony of these flying foxes that is now complaining about the noise, smell and disruption that they caused since that colony has grown immensely. Why has it grown? Other colonies were disbanded and reassembled in that town because people complained of the noise, smell and the damage these critters were causing to trees. The Sydney Botanical Gardens, home to a colony for many years, decided they needed to scare the colony away as it was damaging too many of their trees and causing too much disruption to the Gardens with their excrement and raucousness.

And now in Queensland they have been found to carry the Hendra virus. Fatal to horses, and now found to be fatal to humans too, there are all sorts of extreme demands for the removal of these flying foxes from the environment.

So we see the case from a viewpoint of what is the human cost. The cost to fruit crops, the loss of horses, the tragic death from Hendra of people like Vic Rail who contracted the virus from a horse (not directly from a flying fox – to my understanding this is the case in every human fatality so far) and now the cost of development of a vaccine to the Hendra virus. We hear little or nothing of the cost to the environnment for the removal of this species from their natural range. We know little of the other environmental services they may provide, as there is little funding available to study such complex matters. If it wasn’t for the PhD work of a fellow UNE student (Peggy Eby – fantastic work she did by the way, and was happy to help me out with my feeble efforts as well) we would know far, far less about this graceful, seriously cute, and massively important member of the Eastern Australian environment. These little guys are important to our ecosystems continuing to function. God dammit, we need these guys about.

How many people go to our National Parks and go giddy about the natural beauty on show. Think of how great they could be if we didn’t try and wipe out every species we have even a slight issue with? Think how amazing these places could be with a full range of natural environmental services being provided by indigenous fauna and flora without being threatened by recreational shooters, invasive weeds, recreational 4WD’s by people who are clueless how to use them, and that list could go on ad infinitum.

Environmental services – if you don’t know what this is, look it up. And then look at critters like the mother and baby above in a new light. I’m no hippy tree-hugger, but I reckon they deserve it.