The Perilous Lives and Deaths of Flying Foxes
Deborah Bird Rose
Also see: The Peril and Beauty of Flying Fox Life in the Time of Extinction
This new research project continues my interest in relationships between humans and animals near the edge of extinction. My focus is on the imperilled lives of flying foxes, Pteropus species, in Australia and elsewhere in the region. I am fascinated by their role as keystone species in relation to other endangered species and ecosystems, and their vulnerability to anthropogenic processes of extinction; by the way they are vilified and persecuted; and by the issues they pose for biosecurity. These aspects of flying fox lives and deaths are deeply connected, and together they allow me to explore entangled histories and futures of flying foxes, trees, rainforests, and a host of other species including humans.
Mother and Baby in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. Photo courtesy of Nick Edards, Bat Advocacy
A major outcome of this research will be a film produced by Natasha Fijn and me. Natasha describes her approach to film this way: ‘I have a background in wildlife filmmaking but my approach to filmmaking is more observational in style, employing principles and ethics of ethnographic filmmaking. Just as academia has tended to focus exclusively on humans, or animals, but not both, this is also the case with filmmaking. My aim is to draw techniques from both wildlife and ethnographic filmmaking genres to make observational films, which include both humans and other animals as active participants in the film.’
Our film will focus on two major stories. One is a story of exclusion and dispersal, most evident in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. This part of New South Wales is home to the endangered grey-headed flying foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus). In May 2010, Minister for Environment Protection Peter Garrett approved the dispersal of flying foxes from the Botanic Garden where they had been living permanently and where a number of exotic heritage trees had been destroyed by their coming and going. The project is meant to be closely monitored, and impact minimised, but it is also open-ended, and can continue for twenty years. At this time the non-profit organisation Bat Advocacy has mounted a legal challenge to the project (link). In the meantime, the project has been cancelled for this year because the flying foxes were in extremely poor condition due to starvation.
Flying fox expert Tim Pearson notes that while flying foxes can, perhaps, be harassed into leaving, no one can predict or control where they will go. He describes this dispersal project as a ‘watershed moment in the life of the species’. By this he means that if it proves to be legal and technically ethical to harass and harry an endangered species, driving individuals from one location to another with no serious means of ensuring that they do not become unwanted and subjected to more harassment at their next camp, the future of the species will become even more imperilled. Pearson is committed but not hopeful: ‘And of course the only reason they keep coming into the cities is we keep cutting down forests. If we can’t even save forests for koalas, then we won’t be able to save them for any other species.’
Tim Pearson monitoring flying foxes at the Gordon Colony, North Sydney
The second story concerns rescue and care. I have been interviewing many wonderful carers and advocates, but for the film we expect to focus primarily on the Tolga Bat Hospital in Atherton, Queensland. The Hospital was founded by Jenny Maclean, a dedicated carer and advocate, in response to a disastrous local situation. The main species of flying fox in this region is the endangered spectacled flying fox (Pteropus conspicillatus); this species is one of the main pollinators and seed dispersers for the world heritage rainforest located in this region, as well as for other ecological communities. In this part of the Atherton Tablelands, flying foxes forage on the berries of Solanum mauritianum (a weed from South America) in October, November and December of each year. Their foraging brings them close to the ground and they are then prey to paralysis ticks. They have not developed resistance to the ticks, and so they become paralysed. Jenny and her team of dedicated volunteers walk the forest floor looking and listening for flying foxes in distress, rescuing them, and bringing them back to the Bat Hospital. Some can be saved, many cannot, and many babies are orphaned. The purpose of care is to sustain all those that have a chance of survival, and return them to their forest homes as soon as they are ready for release (for more information see http://www.tolgabathospital.org/).
Jenny Maclean with April, a premature flying fox in care at the Tolga Bat Hospital.
In addition to the film, I will be writing a book and a number of articles. One article is currently in press:
2011 ‘Flying Foxes: Kin, Keystone, Kontaminant’ in Australian Humanities Review Special Issue edited by Deborah Rose & Thom Van Dooren: ‘Unloved Others: Death of the disregarded in the time of extinctions’.
Also see: The Peril and Beauty of Flying Fox Life in the Time of Extinction
This new research project continues my interest in relationships between humans and animals near the edge of extinction. My focus is on the imperilled lives of flying foxes, Pteropus species, in Australia and elsewhere in the region. I am fascinated by their role as keystone species in relation to other endangered species and ecosystems, and their vulnerability to anthropogenic processes of extinction; by the way they are vilified and persecuted; and by the issues they pose for biosecurity. These aspects of flying fox lives and deaths are deeply connected, and together they allow me to explore entangled histories and futures of flying foxes, trees, rainforests, and a host of other species including humans.
Mother and Baby in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. Photo courtesy of Nick Edards, Bat Advocacy
A major outcome of this research will be a film produced by Natasha Fijn and me. Natasha describes her approach to film this way: ‘I have a background in wildlife filmmaking but my approach to filmmaking is more observational in style, employing principles and ethics of ethnographic filmmaking. Just as academia has tended to focus exclusively on humans, or animals, but not both, this is also the case with filmmaking. My aim is to draw techniques from both wildlife and ethnographic filmmaking genres to make observational films, which include both humans and other animals as active participants in the film.’
Our film will focus on two major stories. One is a story of exclusion and dispersal, most evident in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. This part of New South Wales is home to the endangered grey-headed flying foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus). In May 2010, Minister for Environment Protection Peter Garrett approved the dispersal of flying foxes from the Botanic Garden where they had been living permanently and where a number of exotic heritage trees had been destroyed by their coming and going. The project is meant to be closely monitored, and impact minimised, but it is also open-ended, and can continue for twenty years. At this time the non-profit organisation Bat Advocacy has mounted a legal challenge to the project (link). In the meantime, the project has been cancelled for this year because the flying foxes were in extremely poor condition due to starvation.
Flying fox expert Tim Pearson notes that while flying foxes can, perhaps, be harassed into leaving, no one can predict or control where they will go. He describes this dispersal project as a ‘watershed moment in the life of the species’. By this he means that if it proves to be legal and technically ethical to harass and harry an endangered species, driving individuals from one location to another with no serious means of ensuring that they do not become unwanted and subjected to more harassment at their next camp, the future of the species will become even more imperilled. Pearson is committed but not hopeful: ‘And of course the only reason they keep coming into the cities is we keep cutting down forests. If we can’t even save forests for koalas, then we won’t be able to save them for any other species.’
Tim Pearson monitoring flying foxes at the Gordon Colony, North Sydney
The second story concerns rescue and care. I have been interviewing many wonderful carers and advocates, but for the film we expect to focus primarily on the Tolga Bat Hospital in Atherton, Queensland. The Hospital was founded by Jenny Maclean, a dedicated carer and advocate, in response to a disastrous local situation. The main species of flying fox in this region is the endangered spectacled flying fox (Pteropus conspicillatus); this species is one of the main pollinators and seed dispersers for the world heritage rainforest located in this region, as well as for other ecological communities. In this part of the Atherton Tablelands, flying foxes forage on the berries of Solanum mauritianum (a weed from South America) in October, November and December of each year. Their foraging brings them close to the ground and they are then prey to paralysis ticks. They have not developed resistance to the ticks, and so they become paralysed. Jenny and her team of dedicated volunteers walk the forest floor looking and listening for flying foxes in distress, rescuing them, and bringing them back to the Bat Hospital. Some can be saved, many cannot, and many babies are orphaned. The purpose of care is to sustain all those that have a chance of survival, and return them to their forest homes as soon as they are ready for release (for more information see http://www.tolgabathospital.org/).
Jenny Maclean with April, a premature flying fox in care at the Tolga Bat Hospital.
In addition to the film, I will be writing a book and a number of articles. One article is currently in press:
2011 ‘Flying Foxes: Kin, Keystone, Kontaminant’ in Australian Humanities Review Special Issue edited by Deborah Rose & Thom Van Dooren: ‘Unloved Others: Death of the disregarded in the time of extinctions’.
