Palm trees are being trimmed at NSW racecourses in a bid to stem the spread of the deadly Hendra virus.
The state’s 126 racetracks were audited on Friday to assess the exposure of horses to disease-carrying fruit bats.
Nine horses infected with Hendra have died or been put down since late June, six in Queensland and three in NSW.
Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’landys said date palms would be trimmed at racecourses at Gosford, on the state’s central coast, and Warwick Farm, in southwest Sydney, in an effort to keep fruit bats away from grass areas where horses graze.
“At this stage, we’re just trimming them back … to make it less of a risk,” he told AAP on Friday.
“They’re not so bad at the other tracks.”
A larger colony of flying foxes lives at Randwick racecourse, in Sydney’s east, but their fig tree habitat cannot be trimmed because the vegetation is heritage listed.
Sections of the track were cordoned off on Thursday, but there are no plans to remove the grey-headed bats which are considered an endangered species.
“We’re not asking not for them to be removed because it would make the problem worse,” V’landys said.
A flying fox colony also lives at nearby Centennial Park, which houses an equestrian centre.
The NSW Department of Primary Industries is advising trainers to cover food containers and keep their horses off grass so they can’t potentially ingest the urine, faeces or birthing fluid of bats.
But Kerryn Parry-Jones, a research associate with the University of Sydney’s School of Biological Sciences, said the horses in NSW and Queensland may have died of something else.
“It’s likely there’s something else predisposing the horses to catching the disease,” she told AAP on Friday.
She also disputes the link between the Hendra virus and the deaths of the horses.
“It’s not completely known, the method of transmission,” said Dr Parry-Jones, who has spent 25 years studying flying foxes.
“We know it does exist in the flying foxes … as a minor disease that has co-evolved.”
In bats, Hendra virus exists as a mild respiratory ailment.
But the disease is deadly in horses and can potentially be passed on to humans.
Horse vets are being urged to take special precautions.
On Thursday, a Hendra-infected horse was buried at Wollongbar, east of Lismore in northern NSW, after being euthanased.
The first horse in NSW to die was put down at at the same Wollongbar property on June 30.
Three days later, a Hendra-infected horse died on a property about 200km away in Macksville, on the NSW mid-north coast.
Black flying foxes are more common in northern NSW while their endangered grey-headed cousins are flocking to Sydney, where local councils have planted native paper bark and fig trees in recent decades.
Dr Parry-Jones stressed bats were more likely to carry the Hendra virus.
Racing NSW is expecting a final report on the audit of its racecourses to be compiled by early next week.
AAP TURF
