Geographies of Coexistence: negotiating urban space with the Grey-Headed Flying-Fox

ABSTRACT

The global phenomena of wildlife migration to urban areas unsettle notions of the city being exclusively for humans. Using a dialogue between urban political ecology and multispecies ethnographies we explore entanglement as a way forward for humans and non-humans to work together. Over the last two decades the Grey-Headed Flying-Fox has become increasingly prevalent in the urbanised spaces of south-east Australia, establishing roosts in trees in urban parks, recreational areas and residential yards. Human–flying-fox relations are complex, and tensions between demands for lethal control and recognition of their ecological role and threatened species status forces humans to negotiate urban space for coexistence. Public policy and planning documents are analysed to identify emerging narratives as coexistence is negotiated around human amenity, the withdrawal of what we call the social licence to harm, legislative conservation and flying-fox agency.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical discourse analysis
• entanglement human-animal relations
• multispecies perspectives
• social licence to operate (SLO)
• urbanisation‌
• urban political ecology

Introduction

Cities are multispecies spaces, co-produced by humans and non-humans (Houston et al. 2018; Whatmore 2002). Yet urban planning gives priority to human habitation and use, ignoring the possibility of non-humans as agents of change. The global phenomena of wild animals increasingly inhabiting urban space not only presents new challenges, it forces humans to confront the reality that they do not have a sole claim on the city.

The Grey-Headed Flying-Fox (GHFF)¹ (Pteropus poliocephalus) is the largest of four megabat species native to mainland Australia. Its telos is light grey fur on the head, dark grey fur on the body, russet collar around the neck, body length of 230–289 mm and a wingspan of up to one meter. The reproduction rate is low; mature females give birth to one pup per year, usually between October and December (DPE 2022). The GHFF have historically occupied forests and woodlands of eastern Australia, however, they have tended to preference human-modified landscapes (Timmiss et al. 2021). A nomadic animal, with a food preference for pollen and nectar, flying-foxes travel great distances over south-eastern Australia following the flowering patterns of native trees. While flying-fox roosts (or camps) have been part of the urban landscape for many years, they are perceived by humans to be an invading species, as historical roost sites are (re)occupied and in more recent years roost populations have increased in numbers, with greater roost fidelity (Van Dooren and Rose 2012).

The story of the GHFF is both one of historical pest and ecological hero. From the initial European settlement in eastern Australia, the GHFF have been responsible for crop and orchard damage (Eby and Lunney 2002), resulting in large-scale culling programs (Hall 2002). Consequently, from an animal-focused perspective, the historical social licence to operate (SLO) (see Duncan, Graham, and McManus 2018; McManus 2022) was effectively what we call a Social Licence to Harm (SLH). More recent urban preferencing brings flying-foxes into direct conflict with humans with roosts (re)established in and amongst human settlement in the trees and other vegetation associated with road verges, public parks, playgrounds, riparian corridors, and the yards of urban residences. They can restrict the use of public facilities such parks and recreational areas and amenity impacts for residents through noise, odour, faecal drop, perceived disease risk and cause damage to trees, resulting in resident demands to implement harmful actions to facilitate their removal. The GHFF is listed as a threatened species and legally protected under biodiversity conservation laws. The ecological value of flying-foxes for their role in pollination and seed dispersal of some Australian native plants is also recognised (Timmiss et al. 2021). While the SLH has been withdrawn and harmful management is discouraged, the means and political desire to enact harm remain.

Between 2015 and 2022 there was a major influx of flying-foxes at many urban sites along the east coast of Australia (and extending inland), with new roosts established. In particular roosts were established in urban and peri-urban areas of the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales (Hunter Region), northwest of Sydney, with concerns from effected residents and demands for their removal or eradication. While there has been a number of ecological studies of human–flying-fox relations (Hall 2002; Mo, Roache, and Demers 2020; Mo et al. 2023; Roberts et al. 2021) there has been a dearth of geographical and social sciences research. This paper explores the urbanising processes as a non-human species asserts its presence in urban space and the human inhabitants respond. In particular it explores how the multiple dimensions of human–flying-fox relations playout in socioecological contexts through high-level policies and plans down to site-specific scales. This is as flying-foxes assert and maintain their right to urban space as the SLH is withdrawn and humans are forced to find ways of coexisting. This requires first, to understand how discursive constructions in management policies and plans of flying-foxes both enable and constrain imaginaries of coexistence and second, to explore how humans find ways of coexistence by incorporating this concept into flying-fox management actions.

This paper is organised as follows: Section 2 discusses the theory of multispecies perspectives (MP) and a related but different theoretical approach of urban political ecology (UPE). Recent developments in UPE theory encourage considerations beyond the city focus (Tzaninis et al. 2021), greater emphasis on the biological sciences, more-than-human agency and ecological imaginaries (Gandy 2022a). Hence a conceptual dialogue is maintained between MP and UPE (Gandy 2022b). Section 3 details how critical discourse analysis (CDA) of flying-fox management plan documents was used as the research method. Section 4 establishes the sociocultural context in which human–flying-fox relations exist. Section 5 discusses the implications of multispecies planning through a UPE framework sensitive to human–non-human relations and the nature and extent to which coexistence is possible. This necessitates further refining urbanisation, both beyond the urban and within distinct urban spaces. Section 6 concludes with a commentary on how a dialogue between UPE and MP provides both insights into the emerging spatial practices from entanglement and how the specifics of human–flying-fox relations have enacted a type of multispecies urban planning framework that recognises ecological process, connectivities and the likely needs of non-humans.

Multispecies perspectives and urban political ecology

Human–non-human relations have been considered through two geographical strands of enquiry, the multispecies perspectives (MP) and urban political ecology (UPE). Multispecies perspectives form part of a broader post-human scholarship that seeks to de-centre human exceptionalism and to introduce new concepts such as more-than-human, other-than-human and non-human (Price and Chao 2023). MP accept the entanglements of human and the more-than human as an ontological reality, moving beyond human exceptionalism, considering a more-than-human right to the city and giving focus to connectivity and relations, non-human agency and becoming with the world (Houston et al. 2018; Shingne 2022). MP entails new philosophies of urban planning where non-humans are regarded as partners in urban planning, rejecting harmful actions to focus on what humans and non-humans can do together, and moving beyond compartmental time, to an ethical time attuned to the interfaces, flows and spaces of mutuality (Houston 2021).

UPE is a broad church giving focus to the social, economic, political and ecological processes that manifest in particular material formations of the urban (Heynen 2014; Keil 2005; Swyngedouw and Heynen 2003). The ‘urban’ in UPE is that which emerges from the process of urbanisation being ‘necessarily power laden and representative of many ideologies, power structures and economic ambitions’ (Troy 2014, 389). The key tenets are urbanisation as a political, economic, social and ecological process that result in uneven and inequitable landscapes, where cities are a hybrid form of nature, rejecting the dichotomy between nature and society and the ways that urbanisation and cities rely on the transformation of biophysical matter into commodities.

Urban preferencing by wildlife such as the flying-fox and other animals (e.g. McKiernan and Instone 2016; Wilson 2022) signifies that new urbanising processes are occurring. Yet UPE has been peripheral to multispecies entanglements (Gandy 2022b). Gandy (2022a) recognises the entanglement of non-human life through a ‘conceptual dialogue between urban political ecology and multispecies urbanism’ (p. 16) providing insights into the dynamics of urban environmental change. Gandy (2022b) proposes a conceptually enriched UPE confronting six tensions, including; a greater focus on the ecology and broader biological sciences, extended agency and subjectivity, the redefinition of space, scale and the urban realm, renewed interest in urban epidemiology and zoonotic processes, the delineation of urban ecological imaginaries and the emergence of evidentiary materialism. These provide areas of focus to study urban environmental change.

In this study of human-flying fox relations four focus areas are particularly relevant. First, a ‘more rigorous engagement’ with the ‘biophysical sciences’ (Gandy 2022b, 26) provides entry points into socio-ecological issues such as biodiversity conservation and urban development. Ecologies are used as a way to story and frame particular non-humans inhabiting urban areas as indicator species, survivors, ecological heroes and ecological vandals. Gandy (2019) observes how the notion of indicator species is used to measure the condition of an ecosystem. For example, Trevor (2022) suggests the success of urban foxes as survivors is related to them being ‘opportunistic predators and scavengers’ (p. 74) supporting stories of adaptability and resilience. Some species may be attributed with an ecological role or as ‘ecosystem engineers’ (see Crowley, Hinchliffe, and McDonald 2017, 1846), countering pest narratives that justify harmful management by drawing attention to their ecological value. Alternatively, overabundances of some urban wildlife may inflict damage to other non-human attributes of the city such as trees (Clancy and Ward 2020). While management strategies for problem species may draw on ecological knowledge, undesirable species management may be less informed (Beever et al. 2019). Gibbs and Warren (2014) note lethal management policies for sharks are based on ‘knee-jerk reactions’ rather than ecological knowledge (p. 103). The ecological knowledges of particular wildlife is therefore informed by the politics of multispecies entanglements that move towards either coexistence or more conflictual multispecies engagements.

Second, extending agency and subjectivity requires consideration that non-humans can play a role in ‘aesthetic manipulation of the urban realm’ (Gandy 2022b, 27). Non-humans engage with and shape urban space to meet their specific needs (Hubbard and Brooks 2021, 4190), along with the ability to affect human bodies and activities (Argü‌elles and March 2022). The cojoining of human agency with the specific nature of the urban space and political positioning may result in the emergence of new practices and sometimes contingent urban space (e.g. temporary park closures for bird nesting).

Third, is the multiple scales and spaces through which the urban and urbanisation are performed. Urban space is an emerging entity arising from a ‘relational set of flows that extend beyond a bounded conceptualisation of urban form’ (Gandy 2022b, 29). While the ‘city of flows’ has been a central motif of UPE, there is an opportunity to explore a greater range of urbanising processes emerging from more-than-urban landscapes. New ways of conceptualising the city emerge with Tzaninis et al. (2021) proposing a UPE approach that moves beyond a ‘methodological cityism’, to a situated UPE for a broader range of urban experiences, the emphasis on the city as the object of enquiry and intervention, and the role of non-humans in urbanisation. McManus (2021) demonstrates this approach in the consideration of how bushfire smoke establishes ‘connectivity between urban and other environments through phenomena such as fire and smoke’ (p. 252). While animals such as birds can visibly ‘undermine anthropocentric boundaries’ and create ‘new geographies of encounter’ (Wilson 2022, 1141) they enact multiple socioecological processes (Gandy 2022a) which create alternative perspectives on urbanising process beyond human-centrism.

Fourth, the ideas of how nature and the city ought to be can be understood as ecological imaginaries, being ‘inter-subjective and historically specific framings of environmental thought’ (Gandy 2022b, 31). The urban has historically been regarded as a space produced and inhabited by humans, hence ecological imaginaries of urban futures tend to exclude consideration of non-humans (Houston et al. 2018). The dominant Anthropocene trajectory is framed by the ‘infinite malleability of nature’ (Gandy 2022b, 32) governmentality based on the modulation of natural processes. Ecological imaginaries may therefore be used in response to limited ecological knowledge with concepts such as ‘balance’, ‘out of place’ and ‘harmony of place’ (Clancy and Ward 2020, 6) to both support and not support particular management actions. Is UPE sufficiently theoretically positioned to inform our understanding of the agency of other species? The ‘urban’ is certainly enhanced by focusing on non-humans as part of the urbanising process. Wildlife is unlikely to follow human imposed boundaries but rather identify things that they can and can’t use. The ‘political’ is not just bound up in human agency and power relations, but the extended agency of particular animals. The ‘ecology’ builds on a richer grounding in the sciences to see how ecological knowledge is used, excluded or manipulated and combined with ecological imaginaries. Fundamentally this approach within the broad church of UPE is concerned with how the urban, the political and the ecology work together or in dialectical opposition resulting in particular urbanising processes and formation of urban spaces.

Research methods

Critical discourse analysis

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an analytical framework that gives focus to power relations and ideology in acts of communication (Fairclough 1995). Discourse is a social practice, not only written or verbal utterances but a ‘whole process of social interaction of which text is part’ (Fairclough 1989, 24). Norman Fairclough’s dialectical relational model (Altenkamp 2022), allows a number of entry points by recognising three main dimensions of discourse; the text, the discourse practice and the sociocultural practices in which it is embedded. Such an approach enables issues to be considered at the level of ‘micro, meso and macro-level frames’ (Tenali and McManus 2022, 1075). Furthermore, CDA and UPE align as they provide a critical standpoint (McManus 2021) that draws out the underlying rationales in the production of the socio-natures of urban space (Samec and Gibas 2021).

There are criticisms of CDA. First, there is a tendency to target particular discourses within texts (Catalano and Waugh 2020), which might be overcome by the use of a larger number of texts and quantitative techniques. Second, is the lack of a methodological time plane (Carvalho 2008), especially in relation to the sociocultural contexts in which the texts have emerged (Altenkamp 2022). In other words, different emphasis may be placed in texts on an issue at times of heightened sociocultural happenings. This can be overcome by presenting the select texts within the broad context of sociocultural events within given time periods.

Discursive acts should be considered in relation to the histories, social conditions of production and social conditions of interpretation (Fairclough 1989). This research involves CDA of flying-fox management plans and related documents. A targeted internet search was undertaken and yielded documents at the federal government level, the National Recovery Plan (NRP) and Referral Guidelines (RG), at the NSW state government level, the NSW Flying-Fox Camp Management Policy (FFCMP), Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan – Template (CMP-template) and Code of Practice (CoP), and at the local government level, site specific camp management plans, from the Hunter Region (see Table 1). A further explanation of this choice is given below. The analysis of the discourse practice involves mapping out the relationships between the documents in terms of governance hierarchy, publication date and functionality. Textual analysis needs to be carried out in the context of the particular documents. The documents in Table 1 were structured around broad themes to reflect the issue, background, information/knowledge, recommendations/actions, implementation, monitoring and review. As they are relatively short documents (20–50 pages), textual analysis involved identifying particular words, phrases and sentences within section headings, subsection headings and sections to establish how particular issues where given emphasis.

Table 1. Critical discourse analysis of key documents in flying-fox management.

Document Title

Commonwealth of Australia, 2021 National Recovery Plan for the Grey-headed Flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus). (NRP) Commonwealth of Australia, 2015 Referral guideline for management actions in Grey-headed and Spectacled flying-fox camps (RG) NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, 2015 (updated in 2019) NSW Flying-Fox Camp Management Policy 2018 (FFCMP) NSW Government, 2018 Flying-Fox Camp Management Code of Practice 2018 (CoP) NSW Department of Industry, Planning and Environment (DPIE), 2018 Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan – Template 2019 (CMP-template) Maitland City Council, 2022 Tenambit Flying-Fox Camp Management Plans (TCMP) Lake Macquarie City Council, 2016 Blackalls Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan (BCMP) Dungog Shire Council, 2021 Dungog Flying-Fox Management Plan (Draft) (DCMP) Cessnock City Council, 2020 Cessnock Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan (CCMP)

A broad internet search was undertaken to find non-scholarly textual materials that have been produced to establish the sociocultural context in which the nine policies/plans identified in Table 1 occured. Key words ‘Grey Headed Flying-Fox’, ‘Flying-Fox’, ‘Fruit Bat’, plus ‘camp’, ‘colony’ or ‘roost’, along with words such as ‘urban’, ‘problem’, ‘disease’ and ‘pest’ were used over a period of three hours of internet searching. This yielded links to a range of textual material from events, parliamentary speeches, media stories, social media commentary and the activities of non-government organisations. Although the timeframe for the search was open ended the search results were then organised into a timeline which spanned the period from the late 1990s to 2022. In addition, key events such as the listing of the GHFF and SFF were added to the timeline.

Two levels of analysis were undertaken. First was an analysis of the introductory sections and stated objectives to examine how flying-foxes and their habitation of urban space is discursively constructed and framed. The second level of analysis gave focus to the management approaches in state policies and site-specific actions at the local government level.

The entry point into site-specific scales came from the proliferation of flying-fox camps in the Hunter Region. The Hunter Region, with a land area of 22,694 square kilometres and extending 210 km north–south and 230 km west inland is derived from the intersection of biophysical features including surrounding mountain ranges, a river basin, an estuary and human identified resources. Outside the metropolitan area it is one of the most urbanised regions of NSW, comprising the local government areas of Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Cessnock and Port Stephens, and the mining focused Singleton, Muswellbrook, and the rural Upper Hunter and Dungog.

Under the Hunter Joint Organisation of Councils, a coordinated approach to flying-fox management was undertaken by developing a public education program for Council use, assisting them to carry out community surveys and preparation of flying-fox camp management plans for the more contentious camps in accordance with the CMP-template. Hence a targeted internet search was also undertaken for ‘flying-fox camp management plan(s)’. This yielded numerous plans developed by local governments throughout south-eastern Australia, including 8 in the Hunter Region as listed (in bold text) in the timeline in Table 2. Four camp management plans were selected from adjoining local government areas in the lower Hunter Region, as listed in Table 1 and subject to textual analysis. Through this methodological approach the macro, meso and micro, level dimensions of the entanglements of human-flying-fox relations were identified.

Table 2. Timeline of events reflecting the sociocultural practices associated with the Grey-Headed Flying-Fox.

Date	Event
1998	GHFF establish a permanent camp in in non-native trees in Sydney Royal Botanical Gardens
2000s	Grey-Headed Flying-Foxes started to consistently occupy camps in new areas – Adelaide, Canberra and Orange
2000	GHFF establish permanent camp in Burdekin Park, Singleton, NSW
2001	GHFF and SFF listed as Vulnerable under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 2000.
2001	GHFF listed as Vulnerable under NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995
2009	Draft National Recovery Plan for the Grey-headed Flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus)
2013	Living with Grey-headed flying-foxes, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH).
2013	Commencement of the National Flying-Fox Monitoring Program
2015	Referral guideline for management actions in grey-headed and spectacled flying-fox camps
2015	NSW Flying-Fox Camp Management Policy
2016	NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 replaces the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995
2016	NSW Saving Our Species Program
2016	Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan – Template – Hunter Councils
2016	Blackalls Creek Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan (Lake Macquarie City Council)
2017	Murrurundi Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan (Upper Hunter Shire Council)
2017	Aberdeen-Scone Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan (Upper Hunter Shire Council)
2017	Raymond Terrace Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan (Port Stephens Shire Council)
2017	Living with fruit bats: Inquiry into flying-fox management in the eastern states – House of Representatives standing committee inquiry
2018	Singleton Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan (Singleton Shire Council)
2018	Little Aussie Battler campaign (NSW Government and Hunter Joint Organisation, undated)
2018	NSW Flying-Fox Camp Management Policy (Updated)
2018	Flying-Fox Camp Management Code of Practice
2019	Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan – Template
2020	Cessnock Flyng-Fox Camp Management Plan (Cessnock Council)
2021	Shooting of Flying-Foxes in rural areas no longer permitted
2021	Dungog Flying-Fox Management Plan (Dungog Shire Council)
2021	National Recovery Plan for the Grey-headed Flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus)
2022	Tenambit Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan (Maitland City Council)

Findings: human--flying-fox relations

Human–flying-fox relations can be discerned through reading texts that emerge from the sociocultural practices and discourse practice.

Sociocultural practice

The period between 2013 and 2022 (Table 2) was characterised by heightened tension as urban roosts formed with increasing flying-fox numbers and more sedentary behaviour. The politics of fear is mobilised by feeding misinformation about the ‘messy’ aspects of flying-foxes (Kung et al. 2015). Flying-fox camps in the Upper Hunter were reported in newspaper articles as ‘dangerous and dirty’ and the flying foxes framed as invaders (Andrews 2015). There was also a tendency for alarmist commentary, for example ‘It has now gone beyond a private amenity issue and has become in my electorate a very serious health issue’ (Parliamentary Debates 2016). The threatened species listing of the GHFF is sometimes perceived as hindering camp dispersal or other more lethal actions, with people questioning the appropriateness of this listing (Parliamentary Debates 2014).

At the same time legislative protections and the SLH flying-foxes has come into greater alignment. The Living with fruit bats: Inquiry into flying-fox management in the eastern states reaffirmed the importance of the species but recognised the need to develop processes ‘so that humans and flying-foxes can coexist most effectively’ (Commonwealth of Australia 2017, 64). The 2021 ban on shooting flying-foxes in orchards (DPE 2022; Mo and Timmiss 2023, 33) shows direct violence towards flying-foxes is no longer acceptable. In summary, the sociocultural practices are complex; reflecting environmental ethics, care for non-humans, fear of nonhumans and the desire for control, which are then coded in various discursive practices that emerge around flying-foxes.

Discourse practice

While the discursive practice reflects the three levels of government intervention in human–flying-fox relations, the relationship between the documents analysed is neither top down nor bottom up, rather a formulation of ideas. At the national level of government, discourse practices reflect the threatened species status and the social expectation that a plan for conservation will be developed and implemented. The National Recovery Plan for the Grey-Headed Flying-Fox (NRP)(Commonwealth of Australia 2021) follows a ‘standard’ framework that may be applied to threatened species listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). The purpose of recovery plans is to ‘set out the research and management actions necessary to stop the decline of, and support the recovery of, listed threatened species … ’ (p 3). Although there are criticisms of the effectiveness of recovery planning (e.g. Houston 2021), they are symbolic markers, which in this case establishes the narrative that the GHFF is a species deserving help. This narrative is integrated into the management plans and policies at local and state levels.

At the state government level, the NSW Flying-Fox Camp Management Policy 2015 (FFCMP) focuses on how to manage the ‘flying-fox as threatened species’ and ‘flying-fox in urban areas problem’. The document is targeted mostly at land managers, such as a local council, whose land is occupied by a flying-fox roost and is seeking to intervene to reduce the impact on residents or a public facility. The aim of the policy is to set out possible actions, to be ‘incorporated into a camp management plan’ (OEH 2018, 7). Instead of undertaking actions in isolation the preferred approach is to develop site specific camp management plans (SSCMPs) which involve local level community engagement.

The Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan Template 2019 (CMP-template) has been developed to assist managers prepare SSCMPs. The CMP-template, provided as an editable Word document, facilitates a standardised approach with scope to incorporate local and situated knowledge. Most of the text is written and camp managers fill in the blanks or sections with prompts relevant to the local situation. It includes a section ‘Site specific analysis of camp management options' where the land manager is provided with a table that allows them to demonstrate ‘an assessment of all the available management options’ (DPIE 2019, 36). Such an approach assists local government to prepare a plan in a timely manner before carrying out management actions.

Yet discursive practices frame the flying-fox problem as bureaucratic and constrained by the threatened species listing. The Referral guideline for management actions in grey-headed and spectacled flying-fox camps (RG) and Flying-Fox Camp Management Code of Practice 2018 (CoP) are high level ‘action’ documents ‘paving the way’ to implementation. The RGs assist land manager’s decisions about actions triggering referral processes to the Commonwealth environment agency under the EPBC Act requirements. The CoP provides exclusion from the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, to ‘authorise camp management actions in flying-fox camps in NSW subject to the requirements of this Code’ (NSW Government 2018, 3). The CoP is applicable only to public authorities. It bypasses the need for a camp management plan, unless actions involve clearing vegetation to create buffers or disturbance actions (NSW Government 2018, 5). Overall, discursive practices associated with the flying-fox both reinforce its threatened species status and establish processes through which potential harm could occur.

Textual representation

Discursive practices are further developed through textual representations within the documents. Through analysis of words, phrases and sentences we can develop an overriding narrative of human–flying-fox relations involving five emergent themes; ‘threat and conservation’, ‘ecology and behaviour’, ‘urban living’, ‘human health and amenity’, ‘action and how to take action’, reflecting the order of text in the NRP and FFCMP. The conservation status of the GHFF is listed as ‘vulnerable’ under national and state biodiversity conservation legislation. The NRP (federal) states its purpose is to ‘stop the decline’ and ‘support the recovery’, whereas the FFCMP (State of NSW), states ‘licences or approval may be needed to harm … ’ (NSW Office of Environment and Heritage 2015, 3). This divergence exemplifies the tension, one document taking a conservation path and the other drawing attention to processes towards harm. Aspects of flying-fox ecology are also established early in the Commonwealth developed NRP and the NSW state developed FFCMP by including phrases derived from ecological knowledge, such as ‘important role in pollination and seed dispersal for many plants’ (NSW Office of Environment and Heritage 2015, 3), ‘role as pollinator and seed disperser’ and ‘sustaining ecological processes’ (Commonwealth of Australia 2021, 5). The CMP-template suggests ‘flying-foxes are a keystone species given their contribution to the health, longevity and diversity among and between vegetation communities’ (DPIE 2019, 21). Hence the flying-fox is represented as an ecological service provider with a role in the production of nature, reflecting the broader social imperative for biodiversity conservation whereby native animals benefit humans.

The urbanisation of GHFFs is also considered in various ways. The NRP notes ‘flying-foxes appear to be becoming more urbanised’ (p. 13) suggesting the need to understand the ‘nature of the drivers as a fundamental step’ (p. 13) with reference to Tait et al. (2014). While the FFCMP is silent on this issue, the CMP-template (also citing Tait et al. 2014) lists possible drivers, many being anthropogenic, for increased urban habitation:

Loss of native habitat and urban expansion

Greater food availability from native and exotic tree species that are found in urban areas

Disturbance events such as drought, fires, cyclones

Human disturbance of non-urban roosts or culling at orchards

Urban effects on local climate

Refuge from predation

Movement advantages, e.g. ease of manoeuvring in flight due to the open nature of the habitat or ease of navigation due to landmarks and street lighting. (DPIE 2019, 22)

The early sections of both documents acknowledge the difficult relations between flying-foxes and humans. The FFCMP has two pages with sections/subsections ‘flying-foxes and health’, ‘scratched/bitten’, ‘living near flying-fox colonies’, ‘odour’, ‘schools near flying-fox camps’ and ‘pets and flying-foxes’ (OEH 2015, 4–5). The NRP includes the section ‘social and economic impacts’, acknowledging they cause ‘damage to commercial fruit crops, public gardens and native vegetation’ and ‘negative impacts on amenity’ when located close to centres of human activity (Commonwealth of Australia 2021, 5). In this process of acknowledging people impacted, flying-foxes are constructed as a problem in urban areas. Yet again the two documents diverge in their intent. The NRP takes the pathway of stopping the decline and supporting the recovery, whereas the FFCMP places limits or qualifications on the extent of conservation. The integration of a problem species narrative then establishes the ‘management approach’, which is later detailed in the documents.

Management actions in the FFCMP and CMP-template establish an ordering framework and orientations. There are ‘Leve1 1 actions’ being ‘routine camp management’ such as removing tree limbs and understory vegetation, followed by ‘Level 2 actions’ for ‘in situ management’, such as the removal of whole trees to create buffers, and ‘Level 3 actions’ such as ‘nudging, disturbance or dispersal’. The assigning of levels pre-supposes the expected degree of harm to the flying-foxes and the degree of removal of the roost habitat. As shown in Table 3 some management actions are oriented towards living together or more harm. ‘Learning to live with them’, may involve property modifications such as providing covers for swimming pools, vehicles and outdoor areas. Coexistence may also entail some levels of separation, including ‘routine camp maintenance and operational activities’ aimed at making aesthetic changes (pruning tree, removing weeds, mowing), constituting an emotional separation by creating a roost space that is more pleasant for humans. Coexistence may also involve various degrees of physical separation, generally involving modification or removal of vegetation creating buffers between areas of human use and flying-fox habitat.

Table 3. Approaches to flying-fox camp management.

Management orientation and action	Management Level from CMP	Blackalls Creek (Lake Macquarie) 2016	Code of Practice 2019	Cessnock 2020	Dungog 2021	Tenambit (Maitland) 2022
Supporting them
Provision of artificial roosting	1	×	×	×	×	×
Protocols to manage incidents	1	✓	×	✓	✓	×
Participation in research	1	✓	×	✓	×	×
Co-existence (Living with them)
Education and Awareness	1	✓	×	✓	✓	✓
Property modification without subsidies	1	×	×	×	×	×
Property modification with subsidies	1	✓	×	✓	✓	✓
Service subsidies	1	✓	×	×	✓	×
Routine camp management actions	1	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Habitat restoration to augment camp		✓	✓	✓	×	×
Appropriate land use planning	1	✓	×	✓	✓	×
Property acquisition	1	×	×	×	×	×
Do nothing	1	×	×	×	×	×
Co-existence (Physical separation)
Buffers through vegetation removal	2	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Buffers without vegetation removal	2	×	×	×	✓	✓
Alternative habitat creation	1	×	×	✓	✓	✓
Noise attenuation fencing	2	×	✓	×	×	×
Complete removal
Nudging	3	×	×	×	×	×
Dispersal	3	×	✓	×	×	×
Culling	NA	Unlawful	Unlawful	Unlawful	Unlawful	Unlawful

The situated realities of the flying-fox roost and zone of impact provide another dimension to the issue. Camp management plans adopt those actions most likely to be achievable. According to the Tenambit Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan (TCMP) and Blackalls Creek Flying-Fox Camp Management Plan (BCMP) the purpose of these plans is to ‘guide the management of land … occupied periodically by a flying-fox camp’ (LMCC 2016, 6; MCC 2022, 1). The implication is that actions may not be directed at flying-foxes, but at the land with the by-product being to ‘reduce the impact of flying-foxes on residents’ (LMCC 2016, 6; MCC 2022; 1). Although these plans are primarily focussed on making the land suitable for human living and use, they pursue actions not directly harmful to flying-foxes.

Land tenure and land use are framed as important considerations for management actions. The TCMP states ‘the majority of the site is under private tenure … although flying-foxes have also been observed using trees on adjoining Council managed land’ (MCC 2022, 2). The zoning is ‘R1 Residential … ’ (MCC 2022, 2). The BCMP identifies ‘the camp occurs on Lake Macquarie City Council (LMCC) owned land … ’ and the ‘land is zoned E2 Environmental Conservation … ’ (LMCC 2016, 10).

All camp management plans incorporate sections demonstrating consideration and selection of camp management actions with an explanation of the particular approach to be taken. The BCMP suggests ‘potential alternative sites may be available’ and ‘whether dispersal is an option’ (LMCC 2016, 20). The action of dispersal required suitable alternative habitat and it was determined that ‘few other similarly sized habitat patches in the vicinity that might offer suitable alternative roosting habitat’ (LMCC 2016, 20). The TCMP identifies the existing roost site as a ‘high conflict location’ (MCC 2022, 23) but acknowledges that dispersal actions are unlikely to be successful.

The planned management approaches include actions to alleviate the immediate problem for residents and a long-term project encouraging the camp to relocate away from human settlement. The TCMP suggests ‘short term measures have already been undertaken’ involving ‘trimming roost vegetation overhanging properties’, where possible ‘creating buffers between the camp and adjacent properties’, ‘community education program to provide accurate information’ and ‘subsidies to impacted residents for mitigating materials such as odour neutralising, car and clothesline covers’ (MCC 2022, 31).

The Cessnock, Tenambit and Dungog plans include the long-term action -- of alternative habitat creation in low conflict areas. The TCMP proposes to ‘encourage the flying-foxes to roost elsewhere in the local government area by creating roosting habitat at low conflict sites nearby’ (MCC 2022, 31). This involves restoring a site well within public land approximately 1.3 kilometres from the existing site to ‘entice the camp to move to an enhanced site’ (MCC 2022, 24). The BCMP proposes to create alternative habitat through ‘vegetation restoration at the centre of the site’ (LMCC 2016, 29). The focus is to encourage the roost to relocate to the centre of the Blackalls Reserve, away from private residential properties. While none of the site-specific plans include the use of dispersal actions due to cost, lack of alternative habitat and the risk of splintering the camp to other high-conflict sites, the action remains an option in the CoP.

Towards a multispecies urban planning

An UPE approach using CDA shows how human–flying-fox relations are entangled in sociocultural and political contexts of human interests, environmental ethics, conservation and human conflict about how flying-foxes should be ‘managed’. The first research question is concerned with how discursive constructions of the flying-fox in policies and management plans reflect broader sociocultural perspectives that both enable and constrain imaginaries of coexistence. The GHFF, despite its native animal status with a basic right to residence (c.f. Gillon 2014; Power 2009), had negative association with humans from being an agricultural pest. A SLH was still apparent, even following threatened species listing, as licences to shoot² flying-foxes were still being issued and dispersal actions considered an acceptable management action. Yet reflecting the fluidity of human–non-human relations (Brighenti and Pavoni 2021), the SLH appears to have been gradually withdrawn, signified by the 2021 prohibition on shooting and the reluctance to implement dispersal actions even for more problematic urban roosts. Although processes for enacting harmful management actions remain there is now a strong politics of conservation of the GHFF throughout its range in eastern Australia.

Management plans and policies are used to establish discourses of balance. The FFCMP and the CMP-template attempt to resolve tensions by framing the issue as ‘flying-fox as threatened species’ and a ‘flying-fox in urban areas problem’. Of these two framings, the threatened species frame draws on a more nuanced engagement with the ecology (Gandy 2022b) showing how a ‘not belonging’ perspective of a species can be turned. Although it is a small section, the CMP-template gives consideration to theoretical drivers of flying-fox urban habitation relating them to human-driven environmental change. The urban realm can be perceived as a refugia for species escaping from conditions caused by humans (Clancy and Ward 2020), revealing connectivities between the urban and beyond (c.f. McManus 2021).

The NRP and the management plans incorporate the flying-fox’s ecological value discourse. Establishing ecological connections supports an ‘ecosystem engineer’ (Crowley, Hinchliffe, and McDonald 2017) or ecological hero motif. Drawing attention to the ecological value of a particular non-human provides a means to politically counter the pest species narrative and argue for non-harm. While this approach risks inflating the role of particular species and overlooks ‘the multiplicity of interactions taking place’ (Jepson and Barua 2015; cited in Clancy and Ward 2020, 9), and introducing a neoliberal flavour to urban wildlife conservation, it may provide a recognition point on a path to coexistence in multispecies urban spaces.

The ‘flying-fox in urban areas problem’ frame draws on a range of issues including human health and urban amenity. Humans are particularly averse to coming into contact with bodily exudates of others. Humans could come into contact with faecal matter from flying-foxes on objects and surfaces beneath roosting and foraging trees. This concern is exacerbated by the mobilisation of human health and zoonotic fears. Flying-foxes are regarded as ‘misbehaving’ nonhumans, transgressing human-imposed boundaries creating unpleasant places that are potentially dangerous to humans through transferring diseases (Phillips and Atchison 2020). The emergent geographies of encounter unsettle human conceptions of order, control and civility (McKiernan and Instone 2016), and creating a political space for opposition to protect a threatened species.

There is reluctance to ‘inflate the agency of nature in relation to anthropogenic sources of environmental disturbance’ (Gandy 2022b, 26). Flying-foxes select and exploit treed spaces within the urban for roost habitat. Wildlife repurpose and exploit the vacant or marginally used urban spaces (Trevor 2022) resulting in politicised clash points between humans living near roost sites and the ‘camp managers’ perceived as failing by not removing ‘the bat colony’ (Parliamentary Debates 14 August 2014). Once established their physical presence, bodily processes, odour, social behaviours and unwillingness to move creates a new unfamiliar ‘outside’ within a previously familiar ‘inside’ (Tzaninis et al. 2021). This belongs to flying-foxes and starts to take the form of a nonhuman urban space, becoming a space of human exclusion or an interface of the coming together of humans and flying-foxes. Extended conceptions of agency (Gandy 2022b) become important for a multispecies urban planning framework as human inaction may not result from bureaucratic processes or the preference for conservation, but the ability of nonhumans to be actors in the process of urbanisation.

The second research question explores emerging forms of urban planning in the contested spaces of human-flying-fox relations. Flying-foxes are perceived as an ‘invading species’ (Tzaninis et al. 2021, 238) transgressing human imposed boundaries, coming from not only ‘outside’ the urban but ‘outside’ from some other human imposed boundary. Flying-foxes, however, perceive landscape as movement corridors, navigational markers connecting habitat spaces and foraging areas. The flying-fox issue reinforces the human centred world and gains political momentum from notions of public land and private land. Camp management plans establish new urban boundaries of ‘high conflict areas’, being those areas on, or in close proximity to private land and ‘low conflict areas’ on public land or land sufficiently distant from human settlement. The previously discussed imaginaries of coexistence through separation are predicated on being able to draw the flying-fox roost to low conflict areas, similar to what Tzaninis et al. (2021) saw as concepts of inside and outside in relation to the ‘more-than-human elements involved in the production of urban space’ (p. 238). Human--flying-fox relations (and particularly flying-fox agency) and a waning SLH produce new modes of governance in urban planning.

Urban planning also considers how urban space might be organised to accommodate flying-foxes. The FFCMP, CMP-template and the CoP establish a framework for urban planning for the ‘management’ of flying-fox camps at the site-specific scale. Camp management plans preference actions such as community education, routine camp management actions, property modifications, buffer creation and alternative habitat creation, while the more harmful (but often requested by residents) action of camp dispersal is excluded.

Such actions bring together ecological knowledges and ecological imaginations to create spaces of mutual coexistence, coexistence through physical separation and complete removal from urban areas. Spaces of mutual coexistence accept the perceived messy and untidy aspects of the flying-fox roost. While ecological knowledge suggests that even these minor habitat modifications may be harmful (Lunn et al. 2021), it creates new ecological imaginaries of the ‘appropriate urban flying-fox roost’. Community awareness programs such as the ‘Little Aussie Battler’ (NSW Government and Hunter Joint Organisation undated) try to overcome zoonotic fears, develop empathy, explain ecological value and suggest that the roost may be temporary as foraging resources in an area decline. Creating urban politics of coexistence involve closer engagement with flying-fox ecology to overcome human fears and discomfort. Subsidised property modification programs of car and outdoor covers, and cleaning equipment, provide a physical barrier between humans and flying-foxes. Such ‘in-situ’ management actions reflect a dynamic between the extended agency of the flying-fox and a human realisation it is a problem not easily resolved, plus a sociocultural aversion to killing a threatened species. Coexistence through physical separation may conflict with flying-fox agency, and avoiding situations of conflict with humans may be the best chance for species survival. These pathways of coexistence need to be understood beyond the dichotomy of society from nature, rather, following Connolly (2019), Tzaninis et al. (2021) and Gandy (2022b), through an UPE conceptualisation that is sensitive to the connections between urban and ex-urbia, recognising the agency of flying-foxes and advocating coexistence.

Conclusion

UPE provides theoretical insights into the socio-natures of wildlife urban preferencing. Although flying-foxes inhabiting urban areas is not new, over the last two decades their greater urban presence and the formation of new roost sites has been alarming to some residents. The flying-fox is discursively represented as both a historical pest and an ecological engineer. Their occupation and movement in urban space continues to unsettle human perspectives of urban space, motivating demands for eradication or removal. At the same time there is recognition of their existential vulnerability, and greater acceptance that the urban environment is the best chance the species has for survival. Although dispersal actions are retained in management plans, the withdrawal of the SLH has seen the emergence of policies, plans and guidelines representing a new and complex planning and urban governance system to negotiate the complexities of flying-foxes living in close proximity to humans.

Flying-foxes are an ecological flow into and within the city. The high visibility and prominence of flying-foxes as they move and establish roosts unsettles not only the human sense of urban amenity, but commonly held dichotomies of nature-society, and urban-rural/bush (exurban). Processes associated with protecting the city as a human space and capitalist notions of value from the protection of property come into play and drive management actions of dispersal or relocation. Tzaninis et al. (2021) approach to more-than-urban political ecology establishes a renewed conceptual basis for rejecting such dichotomies as the high mobility of flying-foxes creates new connections not only between urban and exurban, but between different urban areas and within the same urban area. This has implications, because rather than being an invading species, flying-foxes are moving into spaces and reclaiming or returning to historical roosts that have been subject to urban encroachment. The ‘management actions’ for flying-fox roosts involving dispersal actions must be considered in relation to whether there is suitable habitat elsewhere and whether a dispersal action may ‘move the problem to another urban site’.

The pest narrative is countered through engagement with the biological sciences (Gandy 2022b). Through the CMP-template and site-specific camp management plan the flying-fox is recast as an ‘ecological hero’ because of its role in the production of the Australian bio-landscape. Extending from a threatened species narrative, the flying-fox is a ‘battler’ depicted with a cute furry dog-like face, struggling from habitat loss, food shortages and exposed to the elements (particularly heatwaves) and ultimately existential problems. Killing and overtly harmful management actions are therefore less tenable.

By recognising flying-fox agency (Gandy 2022b) in the choice of habitat location and reluctance to move, new ecological imaginaries come into play as new urban planning and approaches to governance must be considered. Although flying-foxes are not extended the ‘right to the city’, their presence is now to some extent accepted, due to the cost and social unacceptability of dispersal actions. The focus of camp management plans has been a ‘learning to live with them’ coexistence through public education, particularly to alleviate zoonotic fears and the use of in-situ camp management actions to shield human from the faecal matter, noise and odour. People living within ‘high conflict zones’ may then be eligible for grants or subsidies for the purchase of consumer goods to aide this preference for coexistence.

MP, provides for attitudinal changes about how nonhumans in urban space are perceived. In pursuing a post-human approach, MP de-centres the human and human matters as the main focus of enquiry, enabling new ways of interpretation. The flying-fox is one of many nonhuman residents of the city and can assert their right to the city. UPE delves into the particular entanglements that hinder the MP.

The threatened species status of the flying-fox provides a legal framework for protection, while the NRP establishes actions to help the species recover. Yet biodiversity conservation is subject to human-centric ‘command and control’ logics (Davison 2010; Houston et al. 2018). Although the ecological connectivities between flying-foxes, humans and bio-landscapes are recognised, the biopolitics is polarised between conservation and human interest/development, while management approaches are about getting the ‘right balance’ between conservation and the protection of human spaces and interests. Such command-and-control approaches entrench actions more harmful while failing to recognise flying-foxes to be entangled in relationships with humans, landscape, other species and the spaces they forage and roost.

The flying-fox management frameworks are driven by human imposed timeframes designed to expediate the ‘paper work planning’ and remove perceived barriers to implementation so that the amenity of urban space can return to ‘human’ normal. New conceptualizations of ethical time need to extend beyond birthing and young raising to the time it takes to learn to live with flying-foxes and other species. Ultimately, negotiating urban space with nonhumans needs to acknowledge entanglement, creating spaces of mutual understanding, ‘working together’ and a non-harm ethic to foster engagement with new ecological imaginaries of the urban as multispecies spaces.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 There are four species of flying-fox (FF) that inhabit mainland eastern Australia the Grey-Headed FF (Pteropus poliocephalus) Spectacled FF, Black FF (Pteropus alecto), Little Red FF (Pteropus scapulatus). This paper focuses on the GHFF as the species most common to New South Wales, however the BFF and LRFF may also be present in the camps.

2 Exclusion netting of crops and orchards is permitted as an alternative. Netting can still be harmful to flying-foxes if the mesh holes are large enough for them to become trapped. The use of nets with smaller mesh holes can minimise harm (Mo and Timmiss 2023).