Batty Katter (all hat no cattle) not mad about flying foxes

[depakid]

Bob Katter is not a batty as some would think.
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Bob Katter is mad, right? Crazy guy in a big hat raving on about random things. On the 7.30 Report on Sunday night he was in full flight: "We've got a terrible problem with the deadly flying foxes. They're going to kill many more people than Taipan snakes do in Australia. But ... these are issues that there's just a different paradigm needed."

Yeah *snigger* deadly flying foxes. Mad.

But Bob Katter isn't mad, you just need to know what he's going on about.

Flying foxes do kill people. Those cute little creatures roosting in our major cities' botanical gardens and flapping their leathery wings over our farmland and forests are actually chock full of all kinds of viruses, some of which can kill humans.

Linfa Wang, CEO Science Leader at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory says flying foxes carry many viruses, the most famous of which are Hendra virus, Lyssavirus, Nipah virus and Menangle virus.

Hendra virus is the most lethal in Australia. Discovered in 1994, the virus has made seven people very unwell; four of them died.

Wang says the virus somehow infected horses, and people working closely with the sick horses, such as vets, contracted the disease.

The closely related Nipah virus is also lethal. In Malaysia, an outbreak of Nipah virus, which uses pigs as the intermediary between flying foxes and humans, killed 105 people. So far, Nipah has not been found in Australia, although a virus named Menangle was discovered in a pig farm in NSW which made a few piggery workers sick, but fortunately no one died.

Lyssavirus is also a killer. The rabies-like disease has directly killed two Queensland women who were flying fox carers.

Taipans, on the other hand, are all mouth, no trousers.

...In 1950 a bloke called Kevin Budden went searching for taipans in Queensland to put in a reptile park. He found a taipan in a garbage dump and successfully caught it with no snake catching equipment. Steve Irwin had precedents, apparently. Unfortunately Kevin was bitten while trying to put the snake into a bag. He died from the bite, but before he did, he insisted the live snake be sent to the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories in Melbourne so that an antivenom could be developed. The snake was dutifully sent and some poor researcher had to confront the killer snake and extract its venom so that the antivenom could be produced.

Since that time, Winkel says, taipans have bitten plenty but killed very few Australians. Winkle says there are only three recorded deaths from taipans in the last 30 years. The antivenom is effective and besides that, taipans are very timid and tend to live in areas far from humans in the top end.

So the tally is six deaths to flying foxes, three to taipans in the last generation. Katter is right to declare the furry bats more dangerous than taipans.

More: http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2010/08/26//2994415.htm

[hatrack]

1. So, is he kind of the James Inhofe of Oz?

Just wondering . . .

[depakid]

2. Cross Huey Long with Earl Butz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Butz

Mix in a Lebanese past- and you get the present Mr. Kastter.

Inhofe he ain't by any stretch of the imagination. Katter would more than likely punch that fool out than sit across a table with him.

Seriously. He has "a special place in his heart" for politicians like Inhofe.

[hatrack]

3. Somewhat reassuring - and thanks for the update.

:hi: