Mount Isa Mayor Joyce McCulloch has urged the community to be patient while councils examine a long-term solution to the bats.
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Council is currently seeking expressions of interest from bat experts on how to rehouse Mount Isa's population of flying foxes, which a Council meeting heard last week now consists of 30,000 individuals around Sunset Lawn Cemetery.
While the current solution of closing the entrance to the cemetery will continue for this wet season, Cr McCulloch said they were going to seek the help of experts to find a permanent alternative location.
"The advice from the state government department in the past about bat management clearly has not worked." Cr McCulloch said.
"In 2016 we asked Robbie Katter to work on the issue with us and he got two department people to Mount Isa around the table to go through how we can manage the bats while trying to maintain the cemetery to an acceptable standard without chopping down our beautiful trees.
Cr McCulloch said this year the bats have spread beyond the cemetery towards the crematorium and badly damaged three horse paddocks raising concerns of Hendra virus.
"Clearly the situation is getting worse not better so I called Robbie Katter again and said, 'we've got massive issues out there, we've got to start doing something else, this is only going to get worse and worse as the years progress," she said.
"I said I really think we need to go away from the normal advice, we need to go to an external expert and get thewm to do an assessment to see if they can be re-roosted."
Mr Katter lobbied the state government who gave the council $100,000 to look into the problem.
"$100,000 is not going to go very far but we're going to make good use of it to get these external experts in to see if where we can re-roost them," Cr McCulloch said.
"We can't go chopping down trees, they'll find another roost, they'll go in someone's back year."
Cr McCulloch said they had sent out expressions of interest to external consultants.
"Once they are in we'll start the process, they will come and assess the area and assess where we can find a new roosting place," she said. "It's not going to an overnight solution, you've got to get the right plantation for them and the trees have to be right but doing it this way is going to benefit all.
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