ENOUGH to drive you batty. Just ask the residents of King George V Ave who are enduring some very unwelcome visitors at present.
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Yesterday, Tamworth Regional Council met with officers from the Office of Environment and Heritage about the flying foxes that are once again roosting on the avenue.
Unfortunately, despite legislative changes last year to allow councils and other regulatory authorities a little more room to move when it comes to the animals, there’s still not a lot that can be done it seems, particularly when one of the species concerned is listed as “vulnerable”.
Council yesterday received some funding to start formulating a plan and a stakeholder meeting will be held next month to discuss options, which is at least a start.
Whether you like the bats or not, you have to feel for affected residents, who are at breaking point with the noise, excrement and damage to the trees.
The argument that they’re just harmless animals doing as nature intended is surely wearing a little thin with these poor souls.
Particularly given it’s become an annual occurrence.
You have to sympathise with council, too, because their options are indeed limited, having to balance the concerns of residents with the bats’ right to exist.
Moving them on somehow is the obvious solution, but you can appreciate council is also a little nervous about this given there’s no knowing just where they may move to – that is, another part of Tamworth affecting just as many, or even more, residents.
It is, of course, not a problem restricted to bats either, many Tamworth residents still able to recall the Peel St starling infestation of a few years back that turned the main thoroughfare into a stinking mess.
Many courses of action were tried there, too, with eventual success.
But the flying foxes are by far a trickier scenario given they’re a native animal that can’t be harmed in any way, shape or form.
It was proposed last year, when the legislative changes were being discussed, that research into the animals’ habits needed to become a priority, so that in learning more about them, we may learn more about how to deter them from residential areas.
This is certainly reasonable, and might even work, but it’s obviously a long way down the track and no comfort for the residents who are looking for answers now.