THE fight to cull the bats in Burdekin Park appears lost after Singleton Council’s application for a licence was refused.

The Federal Government’s Department of the Environment made the decision, ruling the proposal was unacceptable under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999.

In a letter to Singleton Council, the Department’s assistant secretary of the Environmental Assessment Branch, Cathy Skippington, said that the proposed action will have an unacceptable impact on a listed threatened species.

“The EPBC Administrative Guidelines on significance for the Grey Headed Flying Fox allow for culling only in commercial fruit crops during the fruiting season, and only under permit,” Ms Skippington said.

“The culling of flying foxes for purposes other than the controlling of predation in fruit orchards contravenes the agreement made between the Australian Government and New South Wales in 2002.”

Ms Skippington also said that if approved the action would lead to “a long term decrease in the size of an important population of a species, disrupt the breeding cycle of an important population, and interfere substantially with recovery of the species.”

According to Singleton Council’s director of operations, Gary Woodman, the decision to refuse the application was expected.

“The advice that was coming from both the State and Commonwealth Government’s during the submission of our application was not as positive as we had hoped,” he said.

“We will now look closely at the relevant legislation to see if we can appeal or whether that would be a waste of time.”

Singleton Council continue to anxiously await the report from zoologist Dr John Nelson on his opinions on relocating the bats from the park.

“We’ll be looking to analyse Dr Nelson’s report as soon as we get it and present options to councillors,” Mr Woodman said.

“Hopefully we will get the report soon as if we are going to do anything, we would like to do it by the end of March, before Anzac Day.”