It was a furious Les and Joyce Shilton who arrived at The Singleton Argus office this week with news the Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW’s demands on Singleton Council will not only cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but are unlikely to move the camp of flying foxes from the park anyway.

In April this year Singleton Council resolved to use the chemical D-Ter to rid Burdekin Park of a camp of the threatened Grey-headed Flying Fox and the protected Little Red Flying Fox and applied to the Department for a licence.

Since then onlookers have noticed numbers significantly increase with the impact on Burdekin Park’s trees equally obvious.

Already four trees have died and another six are not expected to survive the summer.

The advice from the Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW asks council to carry out a number of reports prior to allowing the D-Ter chemical to be used.

But even if it does this, at considerable cost, any disturbance activities, including the use of the D-Ter chemical can only be used between the months of April and July inclusive and only if the Little Red Flying-foxes are not present.

“They are virtually saying we can do nothing because those Little Red Flying-foxes are always in the park, they never leave,” Mrs Shilton said.

Previous reports indicate that the Little Red Flying-foxes do leave the park from time to time and are nomadic in nature.

The couple’s lives have been consumed with bat conversations since Mr Shilton became vocal and inventive with his plans to rid the park of the bats.

Now he is about to throw his hands in the air but in the same breath, threatens to shoot the bats.

“They have got to be culled, we have been nice in every possible way and followed the State Government’s guidelines but it is time to get tough,” Mr Shilton said.

“They know they are safe and we have got to harm them to make them want to leave,” he said.