Page 854 - Week 03 - Thursday, 2 April 2020
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availability for platypus and may have inundated burrows with the consequent rainfalls. This is mainly a problem if young are still in burrows. At the time of flooding, young would have been close to leaving the nest. It is expected that they will be able to recover when ash levels in the streams decrease, which has started to occur already.
(4) The Waterwatch program has run a Platypus Month in August for the last six years where it conducts group surveys with community volunteers. In August 2019 they conducted 22 group surveys across the ACT region with over 160 volunteers. These surveys are designed to provide an indication of platypus populations in three, one kilometre stretches of river.
The Australian Platypus Conservancy last year set up the Australian Platypus Monitoring Network to encourage the community to do regular monitoring at dedicated stretches of river. The purpose is to try to understand the status of certain platypus populations. This can be found at www.platypusnetwork.org.au/home. This program is in its infancy but has sites at Queanbeyan and the ACT.
Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve has volunteers monitoring the population located at the ‘Sanctuary’ wetlands. Eight individual platypus were recently moved from these wetlands to Taronga Zoo as a precaution from the fires and will be returned when appropriate.
(5) To protect platypus, Opera house yabby nets have been prohibited for use in ACT public waters since 2000. These traps are notorious for killing air-breathing aquatic animals. The ACT Fisheries Act 2000 has now been updated to also prohibit the use in private waters. The ACT Government will be conducting a net exchange so that people who have opera house nets can exchange them for traps that are safe for air-breathing animals. I am also continuing efforts nationally to prohibit the sale of these nets.
Stream rehabilitation actions that are undertaken in the ACT for a variety of reasons including fire recovery, river habitat improvement, riparian zone re-planting will all benefit platypus in the ACT.
(6) The ACT government recently announced a further three years ($350,000 per year) of funding for the Waterwatch program. This will enable the program to continue their valuable work monitoring platypus populations and raising awareness in the community about the threats and conservation needs of platypus.
(7) Platypus are protected under the Nature Conservation Act anywhere in the ACT. Careful management of ACT Conservation areas for all species also protects and cares for platypus. In addition, all river sections downstream of water supply dams are subject to environmental flow allocations which help to maintain water availability for all aquatic species, including platypus.
Stream rehabilitation actions that are undertaken in the ACT benefit platypus in the ACT.
Waterwatch recently provided a submission to the new Special Purpose Reserve on the Molonglo River that overlaps with one of their platypus surveys sites. Waterwatch highlighted potential threats on platypus that managers could avoid plus ways to improve platypus habitat within that section of river. Waterwatch also release a report every year on the condition of the waterways in the ACT region - the Catchment
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