Flying fox damage leaves Coffs Coast growers needing more than netting advice

Who helps a grower when flying foxes damage the crop, then become a hazard the farm’s own workers cannot safely remove?

That is the question facing banana and berry businesses on the New South Wales Mid North Coast. The immediate problem is not a national fruit shortage. It is a concentrated loss of saleable produce, compounded by distressed animals inside plantations and crop tunnels—and uncertainty over who will provide safe removal and pay for added protection. ¹

In an ABC News report published on 27 October 2026 Australian time, Coffs Harbour banana grower Paul Shoker estimated that more than 10,000 individual bananas on his property had been damaged during October. That is one grower’s estimate, not a regional count, a number of bunches or a measured tonnage. But it gives a concrete scale to the loss on one business. ¹

The mechanism makes this more than a story of fruit eaten overnight. Shoker said flying foxes reach for pollen and nectar at the banana flower tips, scratching the bunch as they do so. The bananas can remain on the plant for another couple of months while their commercial future has already been lost.

“As we go to harvest that bunch in a couple of months’ time, it’ll be covered fully in scratches and then it’s no longer marketable and basically we’d have to chop it down,” he told ABC. The work of growing the fruit does not necessarily end when the damage occurs; the prospect of selling it does. ¹

At Bonville, ladyfinger grower Mick Gentle had already put protective bags over banana blossoms. Flying foxes crawled beneath them. He also reported animals staying in the plantation during daylight—behaviour he said he had never seen in 36 years on the farm, alongside damage beyond his previous experience. That is a striking account from a long-time grower, though not an established regional historical record. ¹

Raspberry and blackberry growers on the Coffs Coast face a similar intrusion into protected growing spaces. Berries Australia chief executive Rachel Mackenzie told ABC that flying foxes were entering crop tunnels and “demolishing berry crops”. Some were weak and fragile; some were dying in the nets, she said. No berry-loss quantity, dollar value or count of affected berry farms has been established in that account. ¹

Mackenzie’s request is therefore not just for another way to shield fruit. It is for state support to remove animals safely from places where people need to work.

Australian bat lyssavirus is the infection risk behind that concern. It does not mean every flying fox is infected, but an animal’s apparent helplessness is not permission to touch it. NSW Health’s general guidance says wildlife should be handled only by trained people with the recommended vaccinations relevant to their role and the correct protective equipment. ⁸⁰

The Mid North Coast Local Health District specifically warned against touching or handling injured or dead flying foxes and microbats in advice dated 25 October 2023. That is standing safety advice, not a new deployment or assistance arrangement for these farms. The distinction matters: telling workers not to handle animals is necessary, but it does not itself provide someone who can. ⁸³

Why the flying foxes are entering these crops remains less certain than the damage they are doing. A mass-starvation event is suspected, with scarce nectar on flowering trees proposed as an explanation. Reports of weak animals and deaths in nets do not, by themselves, confirm that cause or establish a regional mortality total. ¹

General NSW wildlife emergency guidance recognises that low nectar or fruit availability can create starvation emergencies. It also describes cooperation with wildlife rehabilitation groups to rescue distressed flying foxes. Neither statement establishes a diagnosis for these crop incursions or a specific rescue arrangement for the affected growers. ⁸¹

The state environment department’s response, reported by ABC, recommends exclusion netting as a physical barrier, with benefits against hail, wind, sun damage and birds as well. It also lists fruit bags, sound deterrents and lighting, and encourages growers to seek advice suited to their operations. Berry growers have been advised to net the ends of tunnels—another expense while fruit is being lost. ¹

General NSW guidance recommends wildlife-friendly netting to reduce entrapment. That is particularly relevant where distressed animals are already being found in crop nets. But Gentle’s experience shows why naming a protective method is not the same as demonstrating that it works on a particular property: flying foxes have got beneath his existing bags. ^{79 1}

The response reported so far contains no funded removal package or date for an assistance decision. Nor is there an independent regional damage audit to establish the full scale of losses. Those omissions leave both the practical response and the size of the bill unresolved. ¹

None of this requires a national banana shortage to be economically serious. Freshmark chief executive Meegan George told ABC that overall banana supply had not really been affected, based on what she was seeing on the market floor. She qualified that assessment: local buyers could still face difficulty accessing supply. Overall supplies of the affected fruit crops, including berries, were described as steady. ¹

The geography helps explain the separation. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures for the 2023–24 financial year put national banana production at 369,000 tonnes, with North Queensland producing 94 per cent. The areas around Innisfail and Tully alone accounted for 259,000 tonnes, or 70 per cent of the national total. Released on 18 June 2025, those are historical production figures—not October 2026 output or a current forecast. ¹⁹

More recent Australian Banana Growers Council figures record 565,690 cartons sent from North Queensland in week 42, ending 18 October 2026, up from 448,111 in week 41. Those regional consignments are shipments, not retail inventories. They cannot be converted here into tonnes, used to calculate damaged NSW fruit or treated as evidence of a retail-price movement. ²⁰

A well-supplied national market and a badly damaged local business can coexist. For consumers, the evidence points to steady overall availability. For affected growers, the unanswered question is much closer to home: who will safely clear the animals from their crops and help protect what remains?