Petition launched to protect flying foxes after Cadel Evans race

LOCAL environmentalists and wildlife rescuers have launched a petition calling for a review of the course travelled by cyclists in the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, to protect Geelong’s colony of endangered grey-headed flying foxes into the future.

More than 120,000 people attended the five-day cycling festival earlier this month, which featured a revamped course with a new loop around the Geelong Botanic Gardens, passing through Eastern Park where the colony resides.

An extremely vulnerable species, flying foxes face several threats including habitat loss and extreme heat, which the colony experienced during the road race as temperatures rose above 35 degrees.

Disturbances during the day such as loud noises while the nocturnal animals are resting can also have severe impacts.

Wildlife carer and Bats of Geelong founder Leila Merritt said the flying foxes were already showing signs of heat distress and exhaustion when the peloton reached Eastern Park.

She said the cyclists clustered together sounded like a loud rush of flooding water through the park. They were then followed by helicopters, support vehicles and police vehicles.

“The flying foxes just dispersed. When they disperse like that, it’s basically a fright or flight response.

“Prolonged stress on this species actually does cause the colony to collapse, and it causes high mortality, and this can happen for a good few days up to a month after stressful events like this.”

Flying foxes breed between September and March, meaning several of the bats that attempted to flee the area during the road race were also carrying pups.

“Of all the flying foxes, the females with their young are the ones at high risk of systemic disease and that’s because they’re lactating, they’re using higher [amounts of] energy, so they’re prone to overheat and get diseases such a myopathy, which leads to multi-organ failure,” Ms Merritt said.

Those that may have been weakened by the experience, she said, would remain at heightened risk, with potential impacts to their ability to forage for food and avoid predators and man-made threats like powerlines.

One of the youngest flying fox currently in Leila Merritt’s care, this little one lost its mum after she fell victim to powerlines.

Although the full impact of the race on the species is hard to measure, Ms Merritt said it was important to avoid similar disturbances to the colony in the future, and described diverting the race through Eastern Park as “irresponsible”.

“It’s too big a race for the colony to be able to deal with it, and for the [City of Greater Geelong’s] environmental team to be able to put things in place to protect them.

“The best way to protect the flying foxes from this race and for most events that might be near the colony is just to avoid the colony completely.”

The City of Greater Geelong and the organisers of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race have been contacted for comment.

To view the petition, head to bit.ly/4aULuTo