The increasing urbanisation, a common theme for Australian species as habitat is destroyed, is one of the key threats now facing the Spectacled Flying-fox. We can tell a similar story in relation to the impacts on species from climate change and there continues to be little appetite for change of behaviour. We learn two things here, firstly the endangered listing, given what has happened subsequent to listing, appears to mean little in Queensland. “The Minister approved this conservation advice on and transferred this species from the Vulnerable to Endangered category, effective from 22 February 2019”.įollowing mass die off events from heat stress in Queensland in late 2018, the Commonwealth Government finally did something: “After 18 months of pointless delays by her predecessor Josh Frydenberg, Minister Price has finally given Spectacled Flying-foxes the endangered listing they have been in desperate need of,” said HSI’s head of programs, Evan Quartermain (Guardian Australia). At the time of writing in 2015, the grids remain so we are uncertain as to adequacy relating to the supervision of the ban. In recent times more extreme elements of the government have not ruled out reversing the ban. This practice was banned in 2001 because of the horrendous cruelty being dished out to these animals and a subsequent ban by the Federal Court. Populations were not helped by the mass execution of Flying Foxes (up to 500 each night) by the use of electrical grids by some landholders. This increase is not associated with the loss of non-urban camps or habitat”. A subsequent publication (Tait et al., 2014) showed that there has been an increase in the proportion of urban camps and an increase in the proportion of the population using urban camps over this time period. Monitoring by Westcott and McKeown (2014) from 2004 to 2014 showed an increasing population shift towards urban areas, which may result in a future increase in human and flying-fox conflicts. However, although much of the species’ range occurs within the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area where it is protected from many threats, key foraging resources are found outside the World Heritage Area in agricultural land, where clearing and persecution at orchards still occur (Woinarski et al., 2014). These impacts have now lessened (Peter comment NO), in part because of protection afforded due to national threatened species listing. “Historic decline was associated particularly with habitat loss and persecution.
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