Why does the Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain Trust want to move the flying-fox colony?
Roosting flying-foxes are killing significant trees and plants in the Royal Botanic Garden. So far, they have killed 26 mature trees, 20 palms and many understorey plants. Over 300 trees and palms are currently being damaged including rare, valuable and heritage species. Over 60 of these are in a critical condition, sustaining severe damage to all or part of their canopies. Sydney tree expert, Judy Fakes, has advised us that heritage trees in the Palm Grove will continue to die unless we do something now. As well as direct damage to the tall trees where the flying-foxes roost, palms in the lower canopy, some of which are rare or uncommon, are indirectly affected by sunburn from the loss of the upper canopy and having their fronds plastered with flying-fox guano. This indirect impact has also caused a significant loss of understorey plants in the Palm Grove (e.g. a lot of wild sourced aroids collected from Malaysia and New Guinea have died). The recent movement of the camp into the Aust
