There is still plenty of facilities at Lumley Park, including BBQ's, and you can check out the antique machinery on display. But there is one section that is out of bounds. A track that winds through the rainforest remnant has been deemed unsafe by the Ballina Shire Council. The reason is the all the bats which now call this place home.

The bats live in the rainforest canopy and their presence does quite a lot of damage to the trees and foliage. This damage weakens the branches and they can fall the 10-20 meters to the rainforest floor and could seriously injure anyone walking below.

Before you start attacking the bats, there is information signs at the park which tell you why the bats are there. They have no where else to go. Due to the lack of rainforest for them to live in they can't move on to another location. Usually the colony would move around giving the trees time to recover, but their options are very limited. So they stay longer in one place.

Now I'm no tree hugger, but this is another obvious example of our impact on the environment and its affect on these endangered animals. If we leave a few more trees in the ground these bats can move around and we get more of our parks or schools or whatever it may be, back for us to use.

Lumley park is a great place for your next picnic or BBQ, but I would grab a hard hat before I venture to far into the rainforest.

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