Australian Platypus Conservancy

This section highlights issues that are important for platypus conservation, including:

• Habitat quality
• Water flow (droughts and floods)
• Water quality
• Litter
• Dams and weirs
• Pumps, pipes and culverts
• Urban development
• Dangerous nets and traps
• Inappropriate angling practices
• Predators and disease

Habitat quality

Platypus numbers and reproductive success are most likely to be limited by the availability of nutritious food, mainly in the form of aquatic insects and other invertebrates. In turn, invertebrate productivity is strongly influenced by the quality of instream and bank habitats.

A positive relationship has been found to exist between platypus abundance and/or feeding activity and the following habitat features:

• Indigenous trees (eucalypts and wattles) growing on the banks, especially large trees growing right next to the channel (as shown at right)
•  The amount of cover provided by shrubs and lower-growing plants, especially those overhanging the water
•  Stream and river banks that are both well-consolidated by plant roots and undercut to a depth of 8 centimetres or more
• The occurrence of relatively coarse inorganic bottom materials, such as gravel, pebbles, cobbles and large rocks
• The occurrence of coarse organic materials in the channel, such as fallen logs, branches, bark, twigs and leaves
•  Water depth from 1 to 6 metres (ideal depth = 1 to 3 metres)
•  The occurrence of sizable pools or backwaters (either natural or man-made) connected to a river or stream

Platypus populations are sometimes found in water bodies that are lined with large numbers of willows. However, two studies by APC researchers have found that a negative relationship exists between the occurrence of willows and the distribution of platypus foraging activity in summer and early autumn. The creeks where this research took place were quite small and the willows were quite old and well established, so the channel under the trees was lined by a thick mat of tough, fibrous roots – undoubtedly making it difficult for a platypus to detect and capture prey.

From a platypus’s viewpoint, other negative habitat features are known to include:

• Lack of vegetation on the banks
• Compacted bare soil on the banks
• Unconsolidated fine sediment (silt or sand) deposited in or next to the channel (indicative of active erosion farther upstream)
• Substantial amounts of bare clay in the channel bed (indicative of active erosion at the site)

In rural landscapes, poor platypus habitat quality is often mainly driven by insufficient plant cover – particularly on the banks but also along adjoining gullies. In many cases, this was initiated by land clearing and has been promoted by excessive browsing or grazing by rabbits and/or livestock.

For example, a number of landowners living along the upper Avoca River in Victoria have reported that platypus were often seen by their fathers or grandfathers up until the First World War, when the number of platypus sightings started dropping noticeably (becoming rare by about 1940). This decline is partly attributed to the war happening halfway around the world: with most of the men gone away to fight, rabbits proliferated, denuding river banks of grasses and other plants. The subsequent erosion caused vast amounts of sediment to clog the channel and fill pools – and fish and platypus populations dwindled.

Radio-tracking studies have confirmed that platypus burrows may be abandoned once cattle start treading on the bank where burrows are located, presumably due to direct physical damage. In addition, heavy livestock use typically causes low-growing plants on the banks to decline or even disappear. In the case of cattle, animals routinely urinate and defecate in the water, degrading water quality both at the site and farther downstream.

In urban landscapes, poor platypus habitat quality is commonly driven by unnaturally rapid runoff of rainfall from hard surfaces such as roofs and roads, especially when runoff is carried to waterways via concrete drains or pipes.

Photos: APC

Water flow (drought and floods)

A platypus will starve in the absence of sufficient surface water in which to feed. However, animals can survive dry periods in an isolated refuge pool, as long as the pool is large enough to provide a reliable food supply in the form of aquatic insects and other invertebrates. If a pool continues to shrink, a platypus will have to weigh up the risk of starving versus the risk of being killed by a predator or dying of heat stress if it chooses to leave the pool and walk across land to find another place to live. Females may suffer more than males when competing for a dwindling food supply during drought, as males are larger and have venomous spurs.

Flow plays an important role in promoting platypus breeding success and hence population survival, as shown in studies conducted along Melbourne streams and the upper Shoalhaven River in New South Wales:

• In both study areas, a strong positive relationship was evident between juvenile numbers and the amount of flow recorded in the five months prior to mating. This implies that some females are unable to store enough fat in dry years to support successful breeding.
• In the mainly dry to very dry years from 1997 to 2007, virtually the same proportion of adults died annually in stable and declining platypus populations near Melbourne. Instead, it was reproductive success that determined population resilience: the number of adults lost annually in stable populations was matched by the number of new juvenile recruits that replaced them.
• The most stable creek population monitored near Melbourne (Olinda Creek, in which 16 resident animals were lost and replaced by 17 new residents in the decade from 1997 to 2007) benefited from a highly reliable environmental flow of about 2 megalitres per day throughout the period.

Flooding can harm platypus populations either directly (when animals drown) or indirectly (by damaging their habitat). The main direct mortality risk is to juveniles occupying burrows that are inundated, especially in the weeks just before young animals first begin to emerge and learn to swim. Flooding can degrade platypus habitat in a number of ways, especially by eroding banks and depositing sediment in the channel (as shown at right).

Photos courtesy of APC 

Water quality

Platypus abundance near Melbourne has been found to be negatively related to the amount of dissolved nutrients (nitrogen and especially phosphorus) in stream water, as well as toxic metals (zinc, lead and cadmium) in bottom sediment. In other words, fewer platypus occupied creeks where nutrient and/or metal concentrations were high. This pattern most likely reflects the harmful effects of high nutrient loads and toxic metals on aquatic insects (the platypus’s main food source). In addition, high nutrient loads contribute to rampant growth of algae that are too tough for most grazing invertebrates to harvest easily. It’s also possible (though not proven) that metals could become directly toxic to platypus after being ingested in food and accumulating in their tissues over time. Similarly, it’s been suggested (but again not proven) that platypus in urban creeks may be harmed by eating aquatic insects that contain traces of drugs used to treat depression and Alzheimer’s disease.

Platypus abundance in urban creeks is also negatively related to the amount of fine sediment carried in the channel after storms (technically, the 90^th percentile of total suspended solids). Given that a platypus normally shuts its eyes underwater, this is unlikely to be due to the water being murky. Instead, it’s believed to reflect the fact that suspended solids eventually drop to the channel bottom, and unconsolidated fine sediment provides poor habitat for most aquatic insects. In addition, high levels of suspended sediment can trigger mass downstream migration of aquatic insects, reducing the density of platypus prey by more than 50% in 24 hours.

The bill electroreceptors used by platypus to navigate underwater and locate their prey are believed to work over a limited salinity range and are predicted to perform best in fresh water. Although platypus don’t permanently inhabit salty estuaries, the animals are known to occupy waterbodies where salinity in summer can sometimes reach 10,000 to 14,000 Electrical Conductivity units (1 EC unit = 1 microsiemens per centimetre). To put this in perspective, horses and sheep can respectively tolerate up to around 9,000 and 15,000 EC units of salt in their drinking water without losing condition. The salinity of ocean water is typically 51,500 EC units.

You can help to maintain (or improve) water quality in creeks and rivers by doing the following things: 

• Avoid washing motor vehicles on impermeable surfaces (such as driveways or carparks), especially if the soapy water runs off to a concrete gutter or stormwater drain.
• Be sparing in your application of lawn fertiliser or herbicides and pesticides, particularly if substantial rain is likely to fall in the near future.
• Use low phosphate or phosphate-free detergents to wash dishes and clothes.
• Never dispose of household chemicals (lubricants, preservatives, solvents, cleansers, paints, etc.) by pouring them down a gutter, drain or toilet – instead, consult your local council’s website to find out how to recycle or dispose of chemicals in an environmentally friendly manner.
• If you home has a septic system, don’t overload it (for example, by doing too many loads of washing in one day) and arrange for the tank to be cleaned out at appropriate intervals.

Photos courtesy of APC (above), Ken Mival (below)  

Litter

Because a platypus mainly feeds on bottom-dwelling insects, much of its time is spent investigating the channel bed where litter tends to accumulate. A platypus also finds it very difficult to remove loops or rings that encircle its neck or body: its front feet end in broad flaps of skin that make great paddles but cannot grip or grab. The back feet are more dexterous, but can’t remove a loop except by trying to pull it back farther along the body. An encircling loop or ring therefore tends to remain in place until the loop breaks or the platypus dies – often due to horrific injuries that develop as the item gradually cuts through the skin and underlying tissue.

Live-trapping surveys carried out by Conservancy biologists over three decades have found that around 4% of the platypus captured in the greater Melbourne region – one in 25 animals – have one or more loops of plastic, rubber or metal rubbish encircling their neck or chest. Virtually any sort of rigid or flexible loop with a diameter of up to about 8 centimetres is likely to be a problem if it ends up in the water.

For example, all of the following items have been recovered from a platypus (some alive, others dead): plastic cable-ties, part of a six-pack holder, wide and narrow rubber bands, engine gaskets, a bicycle head lamp rim, knotted loops of twine, a rubber canning jar seal, a hospital identification wrist band, a short length of PVC pipe, tamper-proof rings from food jars, plastic bangle-type bracelets (as shown above) and elastic hair-ties (as shown at left). In rural and outlying urban areas, discarded loops of nylon fishing line are often the single biggest problem.

You can reduce the risk that a platypus dies a slow and horrible death due to rubbish entanglement by adopting a few simple habits:

• Pick up litter – particularly anything that looks like it could eventually get caught around a platypus’s bill, neck or body – whether or not it’s found near water.
• Spread the word, particularly to children, that carelessly dropped personal items such as plastic bracelets or elastic hair-ties can have lethal consequences for wildlife. Items dropped on sidewalks or in playgrounds may still end up in platypus habitats after being carried long distances through storm water drains.
• Make it your habit to cut through ALL metal or plastic rings or loops of any size before disposing of them – just to be on the safe side.

Photos courtesy of  J. Shaw (middle), APC (top and bottom)

Dams and weirs

The pools found behind small weirs (as shown at right) often provide excellent platypus feeding habitat, contribute to regular successful breeding and serve as important drought refuges. In contrast, because a platypus prefers to feed in relatively shallow water (ideally 1-3 metres deep), most of the impounded water backed up behind major dams is typically not suitable for use by a platypus.

Large dams may also be problematic to platypus in other ways:

Firstly, although platypus are surprisingly good at scrambling up banks, they generally can’t climb up vertical concrete structures. Many dams and weirs therefore act as barriers, particularly to dispersing juveniles engaged in long-range movements. A platypus can leave the water to bypass such a structure, but this will increase its exposure to predators and other dangers. The amount of risk will depend on how far it has to travel on land, how much protective cover exists along the way, and whether a road must be crossed to reach water again.

Secondly, river regulation fundamentally changes river ecology. For example, water is typically retained behind dams through winter in southeast Australia (when rainfall is usually highest) and then released downstream in summer (when irrigation occurs). The seasonal pattern of high and low flow downstream of a dam is therefore often the exact reverse of the historical pattern. Depending on irrigation demand, the amount of outflow can also fluctuate much more dramatically and erratically than would have been the case historically – or be held unnaturally constant for extended periods of time. Water released from the bottom of a deep reservoir will also be colder than would have been true before the dam was built.

Most fish ladders (as shown at left) that are built to help fish travel around dam walls can be used by a platypus for the same purpose. River management is also becoming increasingly sophisticated as more becomes known about the  seasonal flow requirements of platypus and other aquatic species. The biggest challenge is to ensure that sympathetic and effective management of shared water resources occurs even when surface water is in short supply during droughts.

Photos: APC

Pumps, pipes and culverts

A platypus normally spends a lot of time in a burrow, so it’s not surprising that the animals will travel through pipes and culverts of considerable length. For example, radio-tagged individuals have been found to travel routinely through a 45-metre-long concrete culvert carrying creek water through an embankment. Although a platypus will enter a pipe that’s only 10 centimetres wide, it apparently finds it difficult to back up or turn around in such a confined space (and can therefore die if the far end is blocked).

Problems can also arise if a culvert or other structure in the channel has a vertical face that forces a platypus to leave the water to travel past the barrier. While moving across land, a platypus may be run over by a car or killed by a fox or other predator. Cases are also known where a platypus has drowned after becoming wedged in a narrow opening in an irrigation gate or between overlapping wire mesh panels placed across a creek to catch leaves.

A surprisingly high number (8%) of all platypus mortalities reported to the APC from the 1980s to 2009 occurred after an animal was sucked into a mini-hydroelectric generator or irrigation pump. Juveniles and breeding age females appear to be particularly likely to die this way, especially in places where pump sheds are located on elevated banks that provide the best available habitat for platypus nesting burrows in low-lying irrigation districts.

Photos: APC

Urban development

The presence of trees and other vegetation encourages rain to filter into the soil and only gradually be released to streams and rivers. Replacing soil and plants by hard surfaces (such as roofs and roads) encourages rain to run directly to the nearest stream or river, especially if it travels through a stormwater drain or pipe. This rapid runoff promotes bank and channel erosion and reduces flow in the channel between storms. It also carries noxious pollutants into waterways, including grease and oil from roads, litter, and toxic metals from sources such as metal roofing (zinc), tires (zinc and cadmium) and wear of other car parts (chromium, nickel and copper).

In practice, it’s been found that platypus disappear from urban creeks and rivers if directly connected catchment imperviousness (defined as the proportion of a stream or river catchment area covered by hard surfaces that are drained by pipes or concrete stormwater drains) exceeds about 2.2%.

If you live in an urban area, you can help to reduce impacts of urban development on your local waterways in the following ways:

• Install one or more rain tanks to collect water from your house and/or shed roof.
• If possible, use permeable materials (such as loose gravel or porous paving) when developing low maintenance surfaces in your garden.
• Ensure that any areas of bare soil in your garden are covered by gravel or organic mulches so they don’t erode.
• If possible, encourage rain that falls on concrete or hard paving to flow towards a garden bed or lawn (rather than to the street or a concrete drain).

Photos: APC

Dangerous nets and traps

A platypus can hold its breath for less than three minutes when it’s active, and therefore easily drowns in a submerged net or trap. Numerous animals can die in this manner if nets or traps are set in a high quality platypus habitat or are abandoned after being set. For example:

At least eight platypus drowned in two illegal mesh nets that had been strung between dead trees standing in the middle of a large public reservoir located in north-central Victoria (as shown at left). The weight of numerous large fish also trapped in the nets (which presumably were the reason the nets had been set in the first place) made it impossible for the platypus to rise to the surface to breathe after becoming entangled.

The remains of 17 platypus were found in a single unlicensed fyke (or eel) net that was illegally set and then abandoned along a small creek in south-western Victoria. This type of net contains a series of one-way funnels, making it impossible for a platypus to escape. The state of the platypus remains (mainly bones) indicated that the net had been left in the creek for many months. Animals entering the net in winter and spring (when it was submerged) would have drowned. Those entering the net in summer and autumn (when the top of the net extended above the water) would have starved to death.

Seven platypus died in an illegal spring trap (as shown at right), which would have been set to capture yabbies or crayfish in the Werribee River in southern Victoria. The animals are believed to have died over a period of  about a week (the patchy white appearance of the platypus at the top of the pile is due to fur falling out as its skin starts to decompose), so the trap presumably had been left unattended for the same period. The reason why this trap design is so lethal is that the entrance is fitted with a tapered funnel pointing inwards. Studies have shown that a platypus held inside a trap only searches for an exit in the trap’s outer netting – it doesn’t expect the opening to be located internally within the trap and so fails to find it there.

Opera house yabby traps (as shown above) are also fitted with an internal funnel around each entrance. As in the case of spring traps, this means that a platypus will drown after it enters the trap either by accident or because it’s been attracted by edible yabbies inside. Opera house traps are also known to drown water-rats/rakali (as shown below at left) and freshwater turtles (as shown below at right).

   

Fortunately, if you want to catch some yabbies to eat at home, there are some effective options for recreational yabbying that pose no risk to air-breathing animals and are also generally legal (though always check local fishing regulations to confirm this is true). Apart from dangling a chunk of meat dangled in the water so yabbies are attracted to it and can be scooped up using a dip net, various types of open-top lift nets can be purchased (some collapsible, others with fixed mesh walls as shown at right). To maximise success, keep in mind that the number of yabbies captured in all types of baited traps generally peaks within 3 to 6 hours of their being set – after that time, the capture rate tends to decline as yabbies leave after eating their fill of bait.

Photos courtesy of P. Gerolemon (paragraph 2), Brad Smith (par. 4), Mal Doreian (par. 5), J. Spirek (par. 6 at left), other photos: APC 

Inappropriate angling practices

The vast majority of anglers are highly responsible and would never knowingly set out to harm a platypus. Nonetheless, it is by no means uncommon for a platypus to be injured or even killed by fishing hooks or fishing line.

A loop of discarded nylon fishing line can easily encircle a platypus’s body as the animal searches for food and is almost impossible for the animal to remove due to the structure of its front and back feet. The line will gradually cut through skin and muscle until either the line falls off or the platypus dies. This can take a long time – for example, a dying platypus was discovered on the banks of a Victorian lake with one loop of fishing line around its chest that had actually sawed through the animal’s ribs, opening up its lung cavity.

We’ve also heard of many instances when a platypus has been accidentally hooked by an angler, most often when a hook becomes embedded in the bill or front foot as line is reeled in.

The presence of a hook in its bill or foot is a huge and very painful problem for a platypus. The risk to the animal is compounded if the line is cut: we know of numerous cases where a platypus has died after line trailing from a fishing hook became tangled around a submerged branch. The animal then either drowned or died of exhaustion after unsuccessfully trying to break free. We also know of cases where a platypus has died of exhaustion after becoming impaled on a baited hook left overnight in the water to catch fish.

If you fish in places where platypus occur, you can do a lot to prevent such tragedies from happening:

• Make it your habit to retrieve all fishing line and lures from the banks and water.
• If you notice that a platypus is feeding nearby while you’re fishing, either stop fishing until the animal moves away or relocate your activities a short distance upstream or downstream.
• If a hook becomes lodged in a platypus, don’t cut the line. Instead, reel the animal in gently and remove the hook (taking great care to avoid the animal’s spurs if it’s an adult male).
• Never leave fishing lines unattended for any length of time. (Apart from the danger it poses to wildlife, this is illegal in most places.)

Photos courtesy of M. Taillard (above), S. Byass (below) 

Predators and disease

The earliest evidence that platypus were hunted and eaten by Aboriginal Australians consists of bones found in caves occupied between 13,000 and 30,000 years ago.

Carnivorous marsupials (spotted-tailed quolls and Tasmanian devils), white-breasted sea eagles, wedge-tailed eagles, grey goshawks and carpet pythons have all been reported to capture and/or consume a platypus. Given that Australian water-rats/rakali can kill reasonably large waterbirds, it’s possible that they sometimes prey on platypus (particularly small juveniles), although there are no records of this occurring. Circumstantial evidence (the nature of injuries sustained by dead animals) suggests that domesticated or feral house cats may also be responsible for some platypus deaths.

The most significant platypus predators in recent decades are almost certainly domesticated dogs and introduced foxes (which often start by chewing  off the head, as shown at left). Dog attacks were identified as the leading cause of platypus mortalities in a Tasmanian study conducted in the 1990s, and combined dog and fox attacks were identified as the second most important mortality factor in a Victorian study carried out by the APC from the 1980s to 2009 (in which 88% of predation-related deaths were deemed to be caused by foxes or dogs, with the rest caused by birds of prey).

While many parasites and microorganisms have been detected in or on a platypus, few are known to cause disease. In 1982, people began reporting that platypus in some parts of Tasmania were developing skin ulcers which resulted in some animals dying. The causative agent was eventually identified to be a fungus, Mucor amphibiorum, which is known to infect frogs and has been identified in Queensland soil samples. It has therefore been suggested that the fungus may have been introduced to Tasmania via infected frogs transported from northern Australia in shipments of tropical fruit. Fortunately, research has shown that the incidence of Mucor infection in Tasmanian platypus declined by a factor of four from the 1990s to 2008-2009, suggesting either that animals are becoming more resistant and/or that the fungus is becoming less virulent over time. Interestingly, this disease has never been known to harm platypus anywhere on the Australian mainland.

As shown at left, the platypus has its own species of tick (known to scientists as Ixodes ornithorhynchi). The ticks are mainly found on the platypus’s lower hind legs and normally don’t seem to harm their host. They do serve to transmit two types of blood parasites, but these again rarely cause actual illness.

Photos courtesy of Ted Donelan (below), APC (above)