Platypus sightings
The platypus has distinctive physical features and is often active during the day. The places where it lives – lakes, rivers and streams – are also places where humans like to spend their time. Not surprisingly, people observe platypus on thousands of occasions each year.
The development of online options for reporting wildlife sightings means that it’s now easy for opportunistic platypus sightings to be recorded for posterity. The remaining challenge is to weed out those sightings that are probably or definitely in error. This mainly occurs when someone sees an Australian water-rat/rakali and believes it to be a platypus – the two species overlap in size and are a similar colour when wet. Other kinds of wildlife that can be mistaken for a platypus include diving ducks, turtles and even large fish such as carp. Experience has shown that around 2% of community-based platypus sighting reports are clearly in error, with mistakes occurring more often in places where platypus are uncommon (so people are less likely to be familiar with this species’ appearance in the wild). Another 3-4% of reports are likely to be unreliable due to factors such as the animal being seen very briefly or when it’s nearly dark.
It obviously makes sense that anyone asking community members to report platypus sightings should do their best to ensure that potentially faulty or misleading records are not recorded on databases that are meant to be used for research or management purposes. The following strategies can be adopted to help keep platypus sighting databases as error-free as possible:
- Make sure that respondents are aware that accurate identification is critical to maintaining the integrity of wildlife sighting databases – if a person is not confident that a platypus was seen, ask that this be noted on their report.
- Ensure that reference material is made available to potential respondents concerning the appearance and behaviour of aquatic animals that may easily be mistaken for a platypus – particularly if an animal is spotted at a distance of more than 15-20 metres, for only a few seconds, and/or in poor light.
- Along with where and when a sighting occurred, ask for the following information to be included routinely in each community sighting report: (1) What was the animal doing when you saw it? (2) Why did you think the animal was a platypus as opposed to some other kind of animal?
- Ensure that all sighting reports are reviewed by a suitably knowledgeable person before being accepted as valid records (for example, as routinely occurs when sightings reports are received by the Australian Platypus Conservancy sightings reporting system). Particularly if a platypus has reportedly been seen in an unexpected location, it’s essential that supporting details are recorded as soon as possible to help confirm that this species was observed.
The benefits of knowing that all platypus records in a database can be treated with a high degree of confidence are clearly enormous, more than offsetting the modest amount of time and effort required to evaluate them.
For more on the importance of routinely vetting community platypus sighting reports, see Platypus News & Views edition 88 (May 2022), pages 1-2.
Photo courtesy of Colin Green
Platypus Group Watch
Platypus Group Watch has been developed by the APC to provide a standardised protocol for teams of volunteers to record the number of platypus (and rakali/water-rats) observed in a given water body, ideally at regular intervals with one or preferably more sessions conducted annually. Two or more observers are stationed at each of 5 to 12 sites dotted along one to three kilometres of stream or river channel. They then scan for animals for one hour near dawn or dusk. Group Watch sessions are most likely to be informative and rewarding if they are carried out in an area where reasonably high numbers of platypus and/or rakali occur. The Platypus Group Watch methodology has been adopted successfully by a wide range of Landcare and Friends Groups and other organisations, including ACT Waterwatch, Upper Murrumbidgee Waterwatch and Wildlife Queensland’s PlatypusWatch program.
Along with contributing to platypus and rakali population monitoring, Platypus Group Watch sessions can be a very rewarding social activity. For more details, please contact the Australian Platypus Conservancy (see bottom of the Home Page for details) to request a Platypus Group Watch information kit.
Photo: APC
Australian Platypus Monitoring Network (APMN)
The Australian Platypus Monitoring Network provides an opportunity for individuals or groups to provide a more reliable basis for tracking platypus activity over time as compared to even Platypus Group Watch. Volunteer participants upload and name the site (or sites) where they would like to monitor platypus activity, then report how many animals are seen in the course of standardised scans (each lasting 5 to 10 minutes) during subsequent visits. A sophisticated website assists the process of uploading information and providing feedback on the results – both to participants and the general community.
Photo: APC