In September Collinsville was inundated by a swarm of over 26,000 Flying Foxes who over-ran trees, parks and gardens, decimating on almost every surface of the town and becoming a noisy nuisance.
At the time, Whitsunday Regional Council forecast that the ‘bat plague’ would soon end when the Little Red Flying Foxes naturally migrated to their next food source.
Fortunately for Collinsville residents, this predication came true with the population now reduced to 3000 and forecast to soon reach its normal levels of between 200 and 900.
To encourage the bats to move on as quickly as possible Whitsunday Regional Council worked with local residents on a variety of measures.
These included placing six-metre high ‘Wavey Men’ near the trees (which act in a similar way to scarecrows), playing loud music at certain times of the evening and burning incinerators to deter them with smoke.
At one point there were 42 trees impacted, many of which were on private property.
There are now only a small amount left on public land.
“Thank you to everyone in the community that assisted,” said Julie Wright, Director of Community Services for Whitsunday Regional Council.
“It’s good news for all involved and hopefully the rest will move on as well soon as it will get too hot and too uncomfortable for them.”
