Where The Bats Have Hung Their Hat
The Royal Melbourne Botanic Garden (RMBG) was established in the 1840's, just six years after Melbourne was founded. Its century-old trees were once famous for lining lakes and grasslands, acting as a magnificent sanctuary in the midst of a busy city, for all to enjoy. Today, the gardens are more likely to resemble the front cover of a horror novel. The eerie atmosphere and unsightly views are due to the large colonies of bats that have nested high in the canopies of trees, causing detrimental and perhaps fatal effects on the gardens. According to newspapers "The Age" and "Herald Sun", the issue has become a controversial debate, with the RMBG management trying desperately to preserve their gardens, and animal rights lobbyists' persistently knocking their door in an effort to save the lives of the pests that have ruined an important part of Australia's heritage. The RMBG was founded by a man by the name of Charles Joseph La Trobe, an English professor and explorer who evidently had a fondness for Australian botany. Rumor has it that in the 18th and 19th centuries, natural history was the new science of the world. Dimity Reed, author of "Cull the bats or kill the Botanic Gardens", gives an exposition of how La Trobe'
The bats mainly use an area of the gardens called Fern Gully- a lush rainforest haven covering about five per cent of the gardens. I have been able to witness, first hand , that a large percentage of the rainforest has vanished or simply been damaged because of the bats causing wear and tear to the foliage and limbs of Heritage Listed trees. Dominique Thiriet, Flying-fox rescue coordinator, who has spent many years working for Melbourne's Humane Society for Animal Welfare by observing this particular colony, says the bats established a home in the gardens in the early 1980's, and at that time were not considered a problem. However, since then numbers have steadily increased from a mere 500 to unsustainable levels of about 20,000. In summary, this increase in population is directly related to the abundance of food, shelter and warm weather; factors which have kept the bats from migrating elsewhere. Common sense tells us that all alternative methods are deemed to be unsuccessful if tried, because there is no guarantee that these methods will avert the bats from relocating back to their home in RMBG once they are moved. Another apparent factor inhibiting the relocation of the bats is that it is thought to be too expensive. An article in "The Age", titled "Animal Libbers Slam Bat Cull", explains that to provide a safe capture and removal of the bats, an estimation of four hundred dollars per bat was reached. A quick addition performed on my calculator verifies that the relocation of 20,000 bats would reach a total of eight million dollars. It would be expected by Australians that this money would be provided by the State government. However, from reading up on the issue, it appears as though the government is an advocate of the culling to go ahead, so funds for the relocation may not come easily. However, the immense damage caused by the bats is even more catastrophic than what the naked eye can see. It starts when the bats pick the fruit from the branches of the trees, then eat it, dropping the outside part of the fruit
Some common words found in the essay are:
Heritage Listed, Eastern Australia, La Trobe's, Robert Hill, Bat Cull, Garden RMBG, Herald Sun, Animal Welfare, Phillip Moores, Botanic Gardens, botanic gardens, humane society animal, natural history, herald sun, common sense, animal welfare, society animal, humane society, bat population, culling bats, busy city, royal melbourne botanic, society animal welfare,
Approximate Word count = 1387
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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