The fact that they have increasingly moved into more and more of the valuable and stately trees such as the Queensland Kauri pine, ginko, swamp cypress, and other trees in this area, wreaking damage to the foliage, and therefore stress to the trees, is truly alarming.

Some of these trees are more than 100 years old and irreplaceable.

A friend and I took our young grandchildren to the gardens last week, excited at the prospect of visiting the wonderful new children’s garden, created through hard work and dedication, but it was fenced off due to the increasing domination of the smelly, and noisy bats.

These gardens are one of the outstanding regional botanic gardens in Australia, attracting people from around Australia and overseas, and they have been loved and constantly used by local population over the past 130 years for bridal parties and other social occasions — Music in the Gardens being one of the latest, and hugely popular innovations offered in the gardens.

The curator and staff must be extremely frustrated, having to fence off more and more of the gardens.

In the 130 years of its existence, the gardens have not faced such a threat as this.

I ask that the council make haste to find a way to move these creatures on before they completely take over our precious gardens.

— J. SCOTT,

Albury