A regional New South Wales Council is optimistic it has struck the right balance regarding the management of flying foxes — by planning to give them somewhere to move to.
The grey headed and common little-red flying foxes, which are vulnerable to extinction, have wreaked havoc in Bathurst during recent years.
The regional council has considered numerous costly ideas to control the number of the fruit bats roosting in its central building district and parklands, damaging trees and leaving behind faeces.
It now hopes spending more than a quarter of a million dollars will help deter the flying foxes from the city, while giving them a fighting chance for survival.
Local Government New South Wales's habitat restoration program will see 3,500 native trees planted along the Macquarie Wambuul River, including the she-oak and ribbon gum.
Volunteers and school children will help get their hands dirty to create the corridor of roosting and riparian specific vegetation, and the council said they will need all the help they can get for the job.
It will come at a cost of more than $260,000.
A necessity to nature
Flying foxes can be found across Australia's eastern coast from Queensland to near South Australia but their populations are dwindling.
The Australian Conservation Foundation's Jess Abrahams wants us to change the way we think about them from being "a bit smelly and a bit noisy" to the fact they are "unique creatures who play an incredibly important role in nature".
They are pollinators, taking pollen from one eucalyptus flower to another or spreading fruit seeds through their poo.
Mr Abrahams said woodlands and forests would not be functioning without them.
"Without playing this role in the ecosystem, a bit like a bee, we wouldn't actually have forests at all in eastern Australia," he said.
Mr Abrahams said they face an ever-growing threat from urban sprawl and land-clearing.
"They were here first, we're the recent arrivals, we need to accommodate them because without them our forests and nature just wouldn't be healthy," he said.
"It shows us that when we destroy nature the cost of rebuilding it and restoring it is massive".
But he said the animals in the past had happily relocated when better habitat was on offer.
Everyone's a winner
Mayor Robert Taylor said the restoration work was the best and most cost-effective option to control the numbers in Bathurst's CBD and Machattie Park.
"They cause a bit of havoc so if we can do this restoration work it will get them to relocate along the Macquarie River," Cr Taylor said.
He said they would have originally roosted along that area and it was time for them to return there.
"We need to protect them and play a vital role in the survival of these foxes," he said.
