Ripples is the
quartlerly newsletter of the Australian Platypus Conservancy. It provides
updates on research in progress and other APC news. Members of Friends of the
Platypus automatically receive each edition
of Ripples.
Ripples Newsletter of the AUSTRALIAN PLATYPUS CONSERVANCY
Issue 23 Spring 2002
PLATYPUS CARE-A NEW LOOK FOR PLATYPUS
For the past nine years, the APC has
been using live-trapping surveys to find out more about the status of platypus
populations in different areas and habitats. To date, netting has been
undertaken in waterways located in eleven of Victoria's 29 drainage divisions,
along with two rivers on Kangaroo Island.
From this work, two important generalisations
have emerged. Firstly, while platypus are still doing well in some places,
other populations are sparse or fragmented-or even seem to have disappeared.
Secondly, live-trapping work is simply too difficult and time-consuming
to ever provide, on its own, a comprehensive overview of how platypus are
faring across extensive parts of their range.
As an alternative approach, the Conservancy
has recently developed a new program-Platypus Care-to
map where platypus occur based on community sightings of the animals. The
idea behind Platypus Care is simple. Platypus are one of the most well-known
and distinctive animals in eastern Australia, and many people-including anglers,
canoeists, bushwalkers, picnickers, and landholders with stream or river frontage-see
platypus on an occasional or regular basis.
Furthermore, pilot studies undertaken
by the APC in several river catchments have shown that a remarkably good
fit exists between where platypus are commonly seen and where they are captured
in the course of live-trapping studies.
The records collected through Platypus Care will be used to help assess the status of platypus
on a catchment-by-catchment basis and identify populations which are small
or otherwise may be at risk. The Platypus Care database will also assist efforts to map catchment condition,
develop effective plans for restoring waterway health, and monitor how the
environmental values of streams and rivers improve as a by-product of conservation
activities.
Providing feedback to communities about
the status of platypus in their region should both promote interest in the
natural environment and sharpen public awareness of the need to protect
the animals and their habitats.
In the first instance, Platypus Care will mainly focus on collecting sightings from
waterways in Victoria and adjoining parts of New South Wales. Accordingly,
the program was launched in October 2002 at the Eltham Wiregrass Art Gallery
(in Melbourne's eastern suburbs) by the Victorian Minister of Environment
and Conservation, Sherryl Garbutt.
Platypus Care is being implemented in close co-operation
with Catchment Management Authorities in Victoria and Melbourne Water. Funding
to offset the costs of Platypus
Care has been generously provided
by all of the following:
State Government of Victoria
Corangamite Catchment Management Authority
Glenelg-Hopkins Catchment Management
Authority
Goulburn Broken Catchment Management
Authority
Melbourne Water
North Central Catchment Management Authority
North East Catchment Management Authority
West Gippsland Catchment Management
Authority
Wimmera Catchment Management Authority
PLATYPUS CARE: THE INSIDE STORY
The success of Platypus Care clearly depends on the widespread participation
of people willing to share their personal knowledge of platypus. To get the
program off to a flying start, TheWeekly Times newspaper agreed to publicise Platypus Care in mid-October. Together with background information
about platypus biology and conservation, readers were provided with a special
copy of a sightings report form.
Over the next twelve months, stories
about how members of the community can assist platypus conservation by reporting
sightings of the animals will also appear in local newspapers and a variety
of newsletters and magazines, to reach as broad an audience as possible.
Printed copies of the Platypus
Care brochure and reporting
form are now available for people to pick up from Catchment Management Authority
offices, Information Centres managed by the Department of Natural Resources
and Environment, and public libraries across Victoria.
For those who would prefer to record
the details of their platypus observations on-line, this option is also available
by visiting the Platypus Care
website: www.platypus.asn.au
The Platypus Care
website is hosted by Vicnet and was designed and developed by John Kent (jekent@optushome.com). The website provides advice about how to
go about looking for and identifying a platypus, and describes other species
which may potentially be mistaken for a platypus, particularly in low light
near dusk or dawn.
In the longer run, it is expected that
this website will also be an ideal place to provide students and the wider
community with a summary of what has been learned through Platypus Care, in the form of maps describing the current
distribution of the animals across river catchments.
SPONSOR A PLATYPUS
In the course of an APC live-trapping
survey undertaken in April 1999 as part of Melbourne Water's Urban Platypus
Program, a juvenile male platypus was captured with a metal band (possibly
scrap originating from a nearby light industrial area) tightly encircling
his throat. Fortunately, Conservancy staff were able to cut through and
remove this item. Otherwise, as the young animal grew bigger, the band would
slowly but surely have strangled him.
Although officially identified by his
Trovan microchip transponder tag as 01F022BF, the young male was nicknamed
"Lucky" before being released back to the wild. Lucky has now been recaptured
on several occasions, confirming that he is alive and well and occupies
an area extending several kilometres upstream from where he was first captured
along Diamond Creek. Most recently, in October 2002, Lucky was found to
be a robust as well as fully mature animal, weighing a respectable 1820 grams
as compared to only 1215 grams when he was first examined. Lucky is one
of four animals that can be selected by people wanting to sponsor an individual
platypus identified through the Conservancy's research and conservation
programs.
For each sponsored platypus you will
receive:
· A certificate bearing your name (or the name
of a person you designate, if the sponsorship is intended as a gift), a scanned
picture and description of the platypus, and information about the area in
which he or she lives.
· A blank platypus greetings card.
The cost of sponsorship (Aus. $) is
as follows:
1 platypus only: $10.00; 2 platypus:
$18.00; 3 platypus: $25.00; All four: $30.00.
Sponsorship application forms can be
obtained from the Sponsor a Platypus section of the APC website or by contacting
the Conservancy directly.
PRIMARY PLATYPUS RESEARCHERS
Students from Darraweit Guim Primary
School have recently been learning about the specialised craft of platypus
research.
As part of the Victorian Government's
Scientists and Engineers in Schools Project, biologists from the Australian
Platypus Conservancy have been working with twenty-two students from Grades
4-6 to develop their understanding of how scientists go about studying nature.
By anyone's reckoning, the platypus
is a difficult species to study in the wild. The animals are mainly active
at night and spend nearly all of their time feeding underwater or resting
underground in a burrow. They are not prone to congregate or vocalise, blend
in well with their surroundings, and rarely leave any evidence of their activities
in the form of tracks, scats or food scraps. Even the entrances to platypus
burrows are typically very well hidden and hard for humans to detect.
However, it is precisely this degree
of difficulty that makes the platypus an ideal subject for encouraging young
students to think about the challenges involved in working as a field scientist
and organising a research project.
Because the Conservancy is working with
the Upper Maribyrnong Catchment Landcare group at Darraweit Guim to determine
how best to conserve the platypus living in Deep Creek, the students also
have had a special opportunity to see science being linked to practical
environmental action in their own backyard.
The students have been involved in a
number of research tasks, including helping to set nets for a platypus live-trapping
survey and then watching Conservancy staff as they measured and assessed
the condition of captured animals.
The results of the Darraweit Guim survey
were interesting in that no fewer than thirteen of the fifteen individuals
that were captured proved to be males.
This highly skewed sex ratio (which
paralleled the findings of a previous survey undertaken in the area) suggests
that some habitat problems may need to be addressed specifically to make
the upper reaches of Deep Creek more productive of aquatic invertebrates
(the basis of the platypus food supply) and hence more attractive to breeding
females.
The students also received instruction
and first-hand experience in the fine arts of observing platypus in the
wild and describing the quality of habitat along the section of Deep Creek
running behind the school.
School Principal Rob Rindzevicius said
that the students will build on their lessons with Australian Platypus Conservancy
researchers by developing a multi-disciplinary project entitled "Deep Creek
Platypus: Now and Forever". They will generate a report on their local
platypus population which will form the basis of a public presentation to
the Darraweit Guim community. A group from the school also plans to present
a paper on their platypus work at the 2003 student conference on river management
issues in Mildura.
Did You Know That....
When juvenile
platypus emerge from their nursery burrow for the first time in summer,
they are fully furred, well co-ordinated, and nearly (80-90%) as long as
adult animals. Accordingly, there is no special term in the English language
for a young platypus-though Conservancy biologists sometimes refer to such
individuals as "platypups".