Table 17.7Electrocution and Entanglement

GHFF injury and death can occur from contact with various types of infrastructure occurring in the urban and rural landscape, as well as collision with motor vehicles. Numbers of such events are not routinely captured, although in a banding study between 1988 and 1999, Tidemann (1999) identified the cause of death of recovered GHFFs as follows; 71% were electrocuted on powerlines, 21% died in netting over fruit trees, 5% had gunshot wounds and 3% died as a result of collision with motor vehicles. GHFF also become entangled in barbed-wire fencing (Halpin et al. 1999, van der Ree 1999) and there is a report of an adult male Little Red Flying-fox dying from impact with a turbine at a wind farm (posted on ABS discussion list 12 /12 /12).

Competition for resources between flying-fox species may be impacting on the GHFF population. In particular, shifts in the range of all but the Little Red Flying-fox have been recorded in the last decade. The cause of these shifts remains unclear, reasons could include accidental movement (e.g. caused by strong winds), human translocation (e.g. rehabilitated or pet flying-foxes), changes in habitat due to climate change or land clearing (Tidemann 1999, Parsons et al. 2010), or a successful natural shift in the distribution of Australian Pteropid bats in response to the highly variable Australian climate (Parsons et al. 2010).

The GHFF, along with bats in general, is poorly regarded by the general public. From the time of European settlement, flying-foxes were identified with disease and crop losses (Eby & Lunney 2002). The earliest broad-scale study of the GHFF was undertaken by Francis Ratcliff c1930. It failed to support the notion that orchard losses were either significant, or able to be suitably reduced through culling (Ratcliff 1931), however these findings were largely ignored. GHFFs were exempt from the general protections provided to most native animals in NSW under the NPW Act 1974 and it was not until 1986 that the GHFF was added as a protected species. The changed status to a protected species regulated legal culling of GHFF; however unregulated culling of GHFF individuals occurred in NSW well into the 1990s, including the Lower Hunter (e.g. Black Hill camp).

Table 17.11Climate Change

17.11.1Food Shortages

Extreme weather events such as floods and droughts can cause food shortages for the GHFF by affecting flowering and fruiting patterns in native plants. Impacts of food shortages are further compounded by the natural irregularity of flowering in key eucalypt species for the GHFF (e.g. in association with La Niña and El Niño events; Tidemann 1999). Whilst patterns of abundance and shortage are natural, the temporal and spatial extents of food shortages seem to be increasing.

Increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events impact GHFF directly and can result in significant number of animals being removed from the population. Heat waves result in GHFF succumbing to dehydration and hyperthermia when ambient temperatures rise above 40˚C, resulting in mass deaths (Welbergen et al. 2008). Deaths of GHFFs from extreme heat were recorded in 10 of the 11 years between 2002 and 2012 in camps across the range of the animals (Welbergen et al. 2008, P. Eby unpublished data), including approximately 2600 deaths in the Blackbutt Reserve camp in January 2006 (10% of that camp) and 40 deaths in January 2007 (1%).