Flying Foxes are gorgeous, fruit-eating 'megabats'. In 2008, the Queensland government banned the inhumane shooting of flying foxes as a crop protection measure. However, in 2012, the decision was reversed and farmers now are allowed to shoot a permitted number of these bats in their orchards. The fact that these bats are an indispensable element of the ecosystem as pollinators and seed dispersers has been overlooked, so has the threatened status of two flying fox species- the Spectacled and the Grey-headed Flying Foxes. The methods of extermination employed have been proven to be cruel and ineffective, and the permits are often violated. Flying foxes are slow breeders and conservationists fear that if their numbers plummet, they may not be sustainable anymore. http://www.dontshootbats.com/ is campaigning for the protection of Queensland's flying foxes. Visit the site for more information about the issue.
This work by Rohan Chakravarty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.