August 07, 2021
Reduce Entanglement of Wildlife and the Risk of ABLV Transmission via Netting Regulations
The Need to Reduce the Risk of ABLV Transmission via Netting Regulations
The most frequent cause of human-bat contact is via trapping or entanglement of wildlife in unsafe fruit tree netting. Netting regulations (5mm x 5mm or less at full stretch) will most likely reduce thousands of domestic bat/flying-fox entanglements in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia each year. Therefore backyard fruit tree netting regulations should be advanced, as a priority, via the appropriate state government departments.
The good news is that wildlife safe netting is now mandatory in Victoria which will reduce the risk of transmission of ABLV (Australian Bat Lyssavirus) between flying-foxes and humans. These netting regulations commence in Victoria on 1st September 2021.
However neither NSW or Queensland governments have made progress on adopting wildlife safe netting regulations. Tens of thousands of largely preventable rescues and even more flying-fox deaths, and deaths of other species, are a tragic consequence of government inaction.
Netting regulations are a 'no cost' to government means of reducing an annual and very significant impost on the volunteer wildlife rescue community, an even greater one in preventing wildlife suffering and most importantly, the reduction of risk of disease transmission between flying-foxes and humans.
NSW & Queensland government must follow Victoria's example and implement wildlife safe netting regulations.
Therefore while NSW & Queensland governments fail to act on this important issue, Flying-Fox Supporters has prepared 2 documents on netting, one for the Business Owner and one for the Resident, which state that the selling, purchasing and the use of unsafe fruit tree netting is no longer acceptable, particularly as Wildlife Safe Netting is readily available from garden centres and hardware stores such as Bunnings.
These documents explain bad versus good fruit tree netting and can be printed and distributed as required. Wildlife Rescue Groups and contact numbers are listed on the 'Resident's' document. A Greek translation of this document will be available soon.
Please see the documents here:
Wildlife Safe Netting - For Residents
