While angry farmers counting the cost were kept away from attending, getting the ear of Primary Industries Minister Tim Mulherin was no trouble for flying fox campaigner and former Queensland Conservation Council chair, Dr Carol Booth.

Such is the pull of the animal rights activist that she was able to delay Mr Mulherin's departure for the local airstrip only moments after minders had tried to cut short a press conference to get him to his waiting plane.

The pair chatted for about a minute but the nature of their brief discussion is not known to QCL.

Dr Booth is a strident defender of bats but no friend of primary producers, once writing:

"It's hard to forgive farmers for slaughtering thousands of flying foxes and calling it crop protection.

"And it's even harder to forgive a government department charged with protecting our wildlife for allowing or ignoring such slaughter."

After walking away from the Primary Industries Minister's car, Dr Booth said she had made an offer to work with Mr Mulherin's still to be formed flying fox management working group, while acknowledging her formal role in getting the EPA to ban flying fox shooting last year.

"Queensland Conservation Council made the original application to have the ban considered in 2005," she said.

"It took them a long time to consider the issue and weigh up the evidence."

Weeks earlier in news reports, Dr Booth said farmers were exaggerating their stone fruit losses to get compensation and to continue shooting the animals.

Dr Booth said she believed noise and light deterrents were better for farmers because it would mean an end to all-night shifts shooting bats and all-day missions shooting birds.

Ballandean stone fruit grower Ian Mungall, said it showed a lack of understanding of farming.

He said he wasn't fighting to get his shooting permit back, but was more interested in fast, workable solutions to protect his crops.

"I can tell you that after a hard day's work, the last thing I feel like doing is heading out at night to shoot bats," he said.

"Farmers have better things to do with their time. If we're up all night shooting bats and out all day shooting birds, I don't know when we'd get any farming done."