The development of strategies for management of the flying-fox colony at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney

Richards, G. C.

doi:10.7882/fs.2002.052

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Their work is detailed, and Johnson would enjoy reading their accounts. Also, if Johnson were to read Richards (2002) on the attempts to save the Royal Botanic Gardens from the Grey-headed…”

Section: Greening the Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban wildlife management: an emerging discipline

Lunney

Burgin

2004

Urban Wildlife

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Surely the term "urban wildlife" is an oxymoron, a figure of speech that appears to be a self-contradiction. The Macquarie Dictionary (revised 3 rd edition 2001) defines "wildlife" as animals living in their natural habitat, so the term "urban wildlife" seems contradictory because cities are not usually characterised by their wild animals or natural habitats. National parks and nature reserves, forests, rivers, rural landscapes and the long coastline are typical Australian natural habitats where native animals can be found. Regrettably, this view that native wildlife can be found only in "the bush" divides conservation between the city and the country, between urban-dwellers and rural communities, and generates a false social and political divide that makes no ecological sense. Urban wildlife comprises those native animals living in habitats that are found in towns and cities. A less-restrictive definition is applied by some ecologists and urban wildlife can include exotic non-pest species, such as those introduced birds studied by Recher (2004) that have taken up residence in Kings Park in Perth. Such animals characterise a city, but urban wildlife does not include introduced domestic pet and pest species such as dogs Canis lupus familiaris, house mice Mus domesticus and black rats Rattus rattus.

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Section: Greening the Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban wildlife management: an emerging discipline

Lunney

Burgin

2004

Urban Wildlife

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“…Evidence is accumulating that there are successful methods for manipulating flying-fox numbers in select areas of their camp, or in particular trees (Richards 2002). Replanting new areas with suitable quick-growing and roost-providing tree species for flying-foxes will entice them to occupy new areas in camps.…”

Section: Management Of Flying-fox Camps -The Futurementioning

confidence: 99%

Management of flying-fox camps: what have we learnt in the last twenty five years?

Hall

2002

Managing the Grey-Headed Flying-Fox

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Recently there has been a number of new flyingfox camps appearing in urban areas (Birt et al. 1998; Hall and Richards 2000). Some of these camps are reoccupied old, previously non-urban sites which have been overtaken by urban expansion and others appear to be new camp sites altogether. These urban camps are frequently a major source of conflict between flying-foxes and residents and these problems are likely to increase in the future. The gregarious nature of flying-foxes with their formation of daytime camps has been,

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“…Roosts were traditionally thought to be occupied on a seasonal basis, possibly as a result of both climatic variables and the irregular, asynchronous flowering of many native diet species across space (Nelson, 1965). However, in the last few decades, multiple new colonies have become permanently occupied in urban areas (Plowright et al, 2011), including, but not limited to, the centers of the major cities of Brisbane (Markus and Hall, 2004), Sydney (Richards, 2002), Melbourne (Aston, 1987;McDonald-Madden et al, 2005;Williams et al, 2006), and Adelaide, with the latter being well-outside the former range of any Pteropus species (Boardman et al, 2021). The documented increase in flying-fox urbanization has exacerbated humanwildlife conflict, largely due to a loss of social amenity as a result of objectionable noise and smell (Currey et al, 2018) and fear of zoonotic disease transmission (Kung et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variety is the spice of life: Flying-foxes exploit a variety of native and exotic food plants in an urban landscape mosaic

et al. 2022

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Generally, urbanization is a major threat to biodiversity; however, urban areas also provide habitats that some species can exploit. Flying-foxes (Pteropus spp.) are becoming increasingly urbanized; which is thought to be a result of increased availability and temporal stability of urban food resources, diminished natural food resources, or both. Previous research has shown that urban-roosting grey-headed flying-foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) preferentially forage in human-modified landscapes. However, which land-use areas and food plants support its presence in urban areas is unknown. We tracked nine P. poliocephalus roosting in Adelaide, South Australia, between December 2019 and May 2020, using global positioning systems (GPS), to investigate how individuals used the urban landscape mosaic for feeding. The most frequently visited land-use category was “residential” (40% of fixes) followed by “road-side,” “reserves” and “primary production” (13–14% each). However, “reserves” were visited four times more frequently than expected from their areal availability, followed by the “residential” and “road-side” categories that were visited approximately twice more than expected each; in contrast, the “primary production” category was visited approximately five times less than expected. These results suggest that while residential areas provide most foraging resources supporting Adelaide’s flying-fox population, reserves contain foraging resources that are particularly attractive to P. poliocephalus. Primary production land was relatively less utilized, presumably because it contains few food resources. Throughout, flying-foxes visited an eclectic mixture of diet plants (49 unique species), with a majority of feeding fixes (63%) to locally indigenous Australian native species; however, in residential areas 53% of feeding visits were to non-locally indigenous species, vs only 13% in reserves. Flowering and fruiting phenology records of the food plants visited further indicated that non-locally indigenous species increase the temporal availability of foraging resources for P. poliocephalus in urban Adelaide. Our findings demonstrate the importance of residential areas for urban-roosting P. poliocephalus, and suggest that the anthropogenic mixture of food resources available in the urban landscape mosaic supports the species’ year-round presence in urban areas. Our results further highlight the importance of conserving natural habitats within the urban landscape mosaic, and stress the need for accounting for wildlife responses to urban greening initiatives.

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The development of strategies for management of the flying-fox colony at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney

Cited by 9 publications

References 2 publications

Urban wildlife management: an emerging discipline

Urban wildlife management: an emerging discipline

Management of flying-fox camps: what have we learnt in the last twenty five years?

Variety is the spice of life: Flying-foxes exploit a variety of native and exotic food plants in an urban landscape mosaic

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