Silence at the library: Inside Cairns’ flying fox relocation
Cairns Regional Council calls its 2020 dispersal of endangered spectacled flying foxes from the trees outside Cairns City Library a success, but questions remain over where the bats went and how they fared.
A programme of relocation was undertaken for the spectacled flying foxes in Cairns city centre. Image: J. Welbergen.
The streets outside the library are unusually busy as teams gather at 4am in the tropical Australian city of Cairns on the morning of 4 July 2020. Those present have one goal: to evict thousands of endangered spectacled flying foxes from their roost in the heart of the city.
Officially, the methods being used are non-lethal. Acoustic devices releasing pulses of sound are among the deterrents engaged to send the flying foxes flapping off into the skies, ABC News reported. In a media release prior to this event, Cairns Regional Council told residents not to be alarmed by this mass ascent. “This is expected,” it said.
Five days later, the council shared that the flying fox relocation efforts had “successfully discouraged the majority of the animals from returning to the site or settling in other areas within the CBD [Central Business District]”. These activities, including banging together pool noodles, were scheduled to continue for a further 30 consecutive days as a deterrent, and overran to 39. The original federal decision also anticipated three to five years of deterrence.
Now, six years later, the library trees are no longer a daytime camp for the flying foxes. By that measure, Cairns got what it wanted.
Just before dawn in June 2019, sharp bangs cut through the low rumble of machinery outside Cairns City Library. In the figs, flying foxes hung in silhouette against the purple sky.
Flying foxes at Cairns City Library in June 2019, before the council’s 2020 dispersal. Video by Stephanie Meadows.
However, the story of this former nationally important flying fox camp is far from simple. By investigating actions and decisions taken by authorities and speaking with those who challenged them, Step(h) into Nature investigated the rising costs and conditional approval of the continued deterrent action as well as the movements of the endangered flying foxes who, according to critics, keep trying to return to the library.
Many of the current questions surrounding the flying fox relocation were submitted by the public before deterrent activity was approved. Of the 596 responses sent to the council, concerns were raised about losing an important roost, whether alternative measures had been considered, risk of failure, and costs to ratepayers. Other concerns included possible harm to people and bats, plane engine strikes, gaps in monitoring and planning, as well as how the council would respond if things went wrong.
Maree Treadwell Kerr, president of the Bats and Trees Society of Cairns, said the council’s measure of success was that “the flying foxes weren’t in the town.”
“If you’re looking at just that one camp, then yes. Council says, ‘yes, it was a great success. The flying fox is no longer there in the city.’ But you cannot look at one camp on its own.”
A nationally important camp in the heart of the city
Spectacled flying foxes are large fruit bats found in the Wet Tropics of north Queensland in Australia. They are listed as endangered under Australian federal law and are vital to the movement of seeds and pollen across landscapes that have been fragmented by human development.
For years, one of this species’ most prominent camps was located in central Cairns amongst the trees of nearby streets and hotels. Federal approval documents describe a seasonal fluctuation of between 3,000 and 8,000 flying foxes residing in the 4,000-square-metre site located on the fringe of the CBD.
The Council’s argument laid out in the approval documents was that high-rise construction, noise, and other urban pressures were causing a decline in habitat quality for the bats, necessitating a relocation programme for them. The Commonwealth Department noted the Council’s view that if no action was taken the roost trees at the library site may be lost and the flying foxes could be subjected to further harm.
December 2018
November 2019
Looking along Abbott Street towards Aplin Street, a crane towers over the library block in October 2017. In the February 2025 view, the Crystalbrook Bailey hotel rises behind the trees.
On the first morning of the operation, then-deputy mayor Terry James told ABC News: “We understand the importance of the bats and they really need to be protected and, unfortunately, they're not being protected in that area.”
In a response to Step(h) into Nature, Cairns Regional Council said that their goal was to decrease the number of flying fox deaths, prevent further damage to the heritage-listed fig trees, decrease human-wildlife conflict in the CBD, and encourage the animals to move on to somewhere safer. “Council considered the dispersal successful because it did not harm the flying-foxes, did not increase pup deaths elsewhere, and significantly reduced deaths at the City Library site,” it said.
Asked what alternatives it had considered, the council said the Flying-fox Advisory Committee and state and federal agencies had provided input. It said it weighed tree decline, safety, flying fox deaths, and the suitability of the site, and that stakeholders agreed on dispersal and continued deterrence. They did not specify which alternative measures it had considered.
The official approval didn’t just give the Council authority to clear a nuisance site of flying foxes. It permitted the permanent relocation of an endangered population from a nationally important camp to Cairns Central Swamp. Conditions attached to the approval were intended to prevent unacceptable impacts on the species.
Jenny McLean of Tolga Bat Hospital, who was part of the wildlife team coordinating the operation, told ABC News on its first morning that she supported the move on welfare grounds, citing recurring pup losses at the camp.
The shrinking CBD roost
The library is not the only place where these flying foxes roosted in the city. According to documents and images supplied by conservation groups to Step(h) into Nature, they had previously had a more extensive CBD roost network that encapsulated the trees in the surrounding streets. These trees were progressively pruned, removed, or altered prior to the 2020 dispersal.
Looking across Abbott Street towards Cairns City Library, a broad-canopied tree stands to the left of the entrance in December 2018. By November 2019, there is open sky where its canopy had been. Both images predate the July 2020 flying fox dispersal. Images from Google Street View.
Tree pruning around Cairns’ CBD flying fox camp before the 2020 dispersal. Conservation groups said roost tree loss helped push spectacled flying foxes towards Cairns City Library; Council said relocation was needed because the site had become unsafe and unsuitable. Images: Welbergen/Preece.
Treadwell Kerr said that in order to understand the dispersal, you first must look at what happened to the roosting habitat around the library in the years leading up to it.
She explained that after trees were removed from the Novotel grounds, the flying foxes “started to use a whole lot more of the trees in the streets”, including on Abbott and Aplin streets.
The society argues that removing and pruning the surrounding roost trees forced the flying foxes into the few remaining library trees, increasing the stress on them and subsequently strengthening the Council’s welfare argument for dispersal. The Council claimed that relocation was needed to protect the remaining heritage-listed fig trees, reduce flying fox deaths, and move the camp to a safer site.
The issue therefore becomes not just whether the library trees were under pressure by 2020, all parties agree they were. The tougher question is did development and management decisions that took place in the run-up to dispersal approval create the problem in the first place, and has the library camp been treated as a problem to be fixed rather than a very visible symptom of a shrinking roost network.
““They removed so many of the trees.””
Roost trees removed around Cairns’ CBD before the 2020 dispersal. Conservation groups say the loss of nearby habitat helped push spectacled flying-foxes towards Cairns City Library. Image: J. Welbergen.
October 2017
February 2025
If we only look at the number of flying fox deaths at the camp prior to and since dispersal measures have been taken to measure success, it looks good. Once we try to measure success by including the number of pups rescued by wildlife carers, the number of animals displaced to other roosts, repeated disturbance, or attempts to return, it becomes a lot murkier.
Treadwell Kerr questioned whether there was enough information on natural mortality to judge the impact of the dispersal. She said, “We have no baseline data on any of this, so you don’t actually know what it is you’re measuring against.”
The bats that kept trying to come back
Monitoring charts show that flying foxes continued to fly past, try to land on, and attempt to roost in the trees at or near the library after the initial dispersal. Peaks in this behaviour occurred in late October and early November 2020, with further instances throughout 2021.
Estimated numbers of spectacled flying foxes at Cairns City Library and Cairns Villas, February 2019 to February 2023. Data from CSIRO’s National Flying-fox Monitoring Program collection.
In March 2022, the council reported an 83% fall in the number of flying foxes attempting to roost at the library since deterrence began. It also reported 47 rescues at the library in 2020 and nine in 2021.
This does not necessarily mean that dispersal failed. In fact, it could indicate the opposite: that repeated and deliberate disturbance prevented the flying foxes from returning and reestablishing a colony at the same location. The data do, however, challenge the idea that the animals simply moved off to a new, desirable, and safe home and stayed there. Cairns Central Swamp, the council’s preferred site, went unused during the operation.
Treadwell Kerr said the animals still use the area around the library at night.
“If they stopped all the actions altogether, the flying foxes would be sure to come back,” she said. “They come there at night time and feed.”
The federal approval required monitoring at the library camp and alternative sites for changes in bat numbers, the extent of roosting, health, injuries, deaths, behaviour, and signs of stress linked to the operation. A qualified expert was to review the results daily and assess whether activities could continue.
The council’s 2024 Flying-fox Management Strategy shows that monitoring in order to “validate success” and prevent negative impacts was central to the management of the library flying fox roost. The listed success criteria include no flying fox deaths during deterrence and relocation operations and no increase in the number of pup deaths relative to the estimated population at the intended relocation site of Cairns Central Swamp.
Evidence of success also includes daily monitoring at the library, CBD, and Brinsmead Reserve Park during operations, and monthly roost counts within 30 kilometres of the library. These criteria and approaches were set to assess the operation, but the strategy alone does not indicate whether the criteria were met.
The cost of flying fox management
Flying fox management expenditure for 2020/21 reached AU$1,688,709 by July 2021, far above the AU$510,000 budget, according to council papers. The figure includes AU$433,822 in consultancy fees for the Flying Fox Management Plan as well as AU$1,215,056 in horticultural, deterrent, and maintenance works. The same report said officers had not known “the extent of required activities and/or the duration of these activities” when forecasting the budget.
The 2021/22 approved budget was AU$660,000 for deterrence, bat carer support and consultancy. Cairns Regional Council ordinary meeting agenda, 28 July 2021, p. 46.
The report added that deterrent activities would continue, and shared an approved budget of AU$660,000 for 2021/22 for deterrence, bat carer support, and consultancy. An important detail for local ratepayers.
The federal decision documents had anticipated three to five years of deterrence, with the duration to be informed by monitoring.
For researchers who study flying foxes, this came as no surprise. A 2021 review of dispersal attempts at Australian flying fox camps found repeated actions over months or years were needed in 58% of cases, and replacement camps formed within one kilometre of the original camp in 88% of cases. Only 23% of dispersal attempts successfully resolved conflict for communities. All successful dispersal attempts involved a minimum spend of AU$250,000.
Why flying foxes do not follow council boundaries
Professor Justin Welbergen, an animal ecologist at Western Sydney University and former president of the Australasian Bat Society, said “relocation is a complete misnomer and it is not based on the biology of the species.”
Flying fox colonies cannot just be lifted from one fixed home and placed in another. They move through networks of roosts and feeding sites, tracking food across landscapes. One satellite tracking study led by Welbergen identified 201 black, grey-headed, and little red flying foxes using 755 roost sites, 458 of which had not previously been recorded.
His study concluded that a roost is better understood as a “node” in a much wider network of staging posts, and that any action taken in the management of one node can reverberate throughout the entire network.
“The evidence really shows that dispersal is ineffective and even counterproductive in that it can make a bad situation worse in the short term as well as in the long term,” he said.
None of this counters the fact that living close to a flying fox colony can be difficult. Their camps are often smelly and loud, so not exactly conducive to a peaceful home life.
Treadwell Kerr said noise was the main concern for people living near the roost. When the flying foxes arrive at about five in the morning, “they are very, very noisy”, she said.
But she argued that there are other ways to reduce conflict, including buffers, vegetation management, and education. “If you can actually solve the noise problem, and you can do that with double glazing, the complaints just go right down,” she said.
Urban bats are not going away
The dispersal of flying foxes is particularly challenging in part because they are increasingly found in urban environments.
A study of spectacled flying foxes in the Wet Tropics found an increase in the number of urban camps occupied each year between 1998 and 2012. Researchers found no significant change in how close the camps were to urban areas or in land cover around the camps, either of which may have supported a simple explanation of urban expansion swallowing already established roosts. Instead, it was found that this urbanisation of flying floxes may be a behavioural response to the benefits of living close to an urban area.
Other research has found that flying foxes have an affinity for different human-modified landscapes, including planted trees, gardens, and parks. These landscapes often provide more reliable or abundant food sources.
““Endangered species are valued least where they are.””
The Cairns case appears to be just one example of a much bigger problem.
Cairns councillor Rob Pyne believes the city missed an opportunity to live with the flying foxes rather than just move them along.
“It seems to me endangered species are valued least where they are,” he said. “I would see tourists come and be amazed.”
Those who opposed the idea of dispersal and relocation did propose alternative solutions, such as viewing platforms and tourism-style interpretation to foster the relationships between humans and wildlife. Pyne said, “The green side of politics is pretty creative and a lot of those sort of ideas came through.”
“I think the council wanted to move on the relocation programme. They felt they had the public support.”
Tourism asset or civic nuisance?
Cairns’ flying fox debate encompasses divisive topics surrounding ecology, tourism, and the desire and rights of residents to live and work comfortably and peacefully. Tourism, in particular, is a major part of the Cairns economy. In its 2026–27 budget announcement, the council estimated that tourism contributed around AU$2.1 billion and supported almost 18,500 jobs.
To some residents in Cairns, flying foxes are pests. Just nuisance wildlife that emit smells, sounds, and sights that are unwelcome and bad for business. To others, the endangered animals are a welcome presence to life in the tropics of Australia.
A flying fox in a tree on the Cairns waterfront, June 2019. Footage by Stephanie Meadows.
When she lived near a flying fox colony, Treadwell Kerr would take visitors on walks to watch the bats fly out.
Handwritten messages left by visitors and supplied to Step(h) into Nature by BatSoc challenge the notion that their presence was driving tourists away. Examples include, “Love the bats in their natural habitat”, “Bats are beautiful - and vital to our forests”, and “Don’t persecute them.”
Pyne said Cairns had to decide what kind of tourism it wanted.
“There’s tourism and there’s tourism,” he said. “Birdwatchers come to Cairns and they are really top-end tourists.”
What counts support the council’s claim?
The most important unanswered question is not whether the library trees are now free of daytime roosting flying foxes, they are. It is whether the dispersal activity managed to achieve the ecological and welfare outcomes that were used to gain approval for intervention in a nationally important camp of an endangered species.
In March 2026, a council spokesperson said monthly roost counts within 30 kilometres of the library showed that the flying fox population had not decreased as a result of the dispersal action and ongoing deterrence. The spokesperson said the council determined that the animals dispersed into a network of around 75 roost sites in the local government area. Its 2024 strategy describes daily deterrence in the CBD under Queensland’s code for managing flying fox roosts.
CSIRO’s public roost counts record an estimated 3,000 spectacled flying foxes at the library camp in February 2020. Every later recorded count at the camp was zero, through February 2023. At Cairns Villas, a May 2021 survey recorded around 8,000. The counts leave open where the library bats went and how the dispersal affected the regional population.
The strategy also says that the council may share flying fox monitoring data and roost history with research organisations on request. In an October 2020 letter, the Bats and Trees Society of Cairns told the council’s Flying-fox Advisory Committee that it had received only one of the regular regional monitoring reports it had been promised.
Treadwell Kerr said a successful dispersal would have meant “no increased wildlife conflict throughout the Cairns region”.
The silence at the library
Today, the trees are empty of the bats that used to ruled this roost, a situation that was once an object of awe for some and an intolerable nuisance for others. To the council, this is proof that its relocation plan worked. To its critics, it is a sombre reminder that the preferred homes of animals, even those that are endangered, are not always safe.
For Welbergen, the lesson is bigger than Cairns. He explained, “Flying foxes keep these increasingly fragmented forest landscapes together.”
The Cairns flying fox case is a test of how cities in modern day Australia handle the presence of wildlife that thrives in them when they become a nuisance to locals. It forces us to consider whether moving a conflict out of sight is the same as solving it.
Ultimately, residents, politicians, and campaigners alike must consider whether the sound of silence at the library is the sound of success.