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Finding the right place for our hungry possums

May 12 2003
By Claire Miller

Every spring, possums eat my roses the night before the buds unfold. I come out in the morning, and nip, nip, nip, they have removed every one. They make dessert out of the magnolia as well, making a racket arguing over choice blossoms.

I could deal with this nuisance in several ways. I could learn to live with it. Or I could trap the possums and free them in the park, ignoring that they will die, return or other possums will move in. Or I could set up speakers and play loud, annoying noises to warn them all off my property.

But it wouldn't be enough if they just moved a few doors down. I could pursue them. The possums would find no rest until they abandoned the neighbourhood altogether. Where they went, I would not care, so long as I didn't have to share my street.

My neighbours, whatever they feel about possums, would be entitled to watch this nightly spectacle and think I had lost the plot, if not my sanity.

So what on earth do the authorities think they look like, racing around on four-wheeled motorbikes in the wee hours, chasing flying foxes from one city park to another with computer-generated noises, spotlights and starting pistols? Aren't we letting our preoccupation with the bats get just a little out of hand?

For 10 years, it was argued the grey-headed flying fox colony in the Royal Botanic Gardens had to be dispersed to protect the gardens' cultural, heritage and scientific values. That objective has been achieved in recent weeks. The bats are no longer in Fern Gully.

But now it seems it is not enough that the bats leave our precious Botanics alone. The Fitzroy Gardens, the Domain Gardens and Geelong are also out of bounds.

Apparently the bats are allowed to stay in Melbourne only if they consent to camp in the right place, the one chosen for them, out of sight, out of mind, at Horseshoe Bend in Ivanhoe.

The idea that there is a right and a wrong place is, of course, nonsense from the wildlife's perspective.

Anywhere there is suitable habitat is the right place, otherwise they wouldn't be there. But that is not how humans see it.

We think the right place is "out there", as opposed to "in here", which is anywhere we want. The wildlife can share "in here" provided it doesn't make a nuisance of itself, in which case we want to push it back "out there".

Trouble is, there isn't an awful lot of "out there" left after 200 years of ever-expanding agricultural, industrial and urban development.

The crisis was starkly revealed last month in the leaked federal audit of Australia's biodiversity. I am sure many Melburnians tut-tutted over the shocking figures: up to 3000 ecosystems threatened with extinction with 1500 beyond repair, and no slowing in the rate of species extinction.

But I wonder how many concerned about the fate of wildlife in the abstract think flying foxes in our city parks are in the wrong place?

The flying foxes are not alone. Zoologist Dr Nicola Markus says about two-thirds of the more than 155 known colonies on the eastern seaboard are in places their human neighbours would dearly like vacated. The bats pose no health threat; they are noisy and a tad smelly, but then so is the plague of cars on our roads.

She worries that if Melbourne proves colonies can be harassed into moving permanently, it will be only the start. Where do we expect colonies to go?

Obviously the habitat left "out there" is not enough. That is why flying fox numbers are declining and they moved "in here" with us to begin with. And what happens if they won't stay in their designated place? Culling again?

We like to think we can set aside a national park here and a conservation reserve there, and that is the wildlife's needs sorted.

The uncomfortable truth is that if we are serious about saving the wildlife, then we are going to have to learn to live with it, and adjust accordingly.

Melbourne's wild bat chase over the years has cost some $1 million; Dr Markus thinks the money might have been better spent enclosing Fern Gully in a walk-through aviary.

As for my possums, I sorted them out by twining prickly pine cones through the roses and magnolia.

Now they eat the crabapple blossoms instead. Sigh. No one ever said sharing my space with the wildlife was going to be easy.

Claire Miller is an Age writer.



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