As Australia burns, team comes to rescue of platypus
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA >> Early on Dec. 27, Phoebe Meagher, a wildlife conservation officer at Taronga Zoo, set off on a rescue mission with colleagues from the zoo and academics from the University of New South Wales. Several platypuses were trapped in quickly shrinking bodies of water in Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve in the Australian Capital Territory, and wildfires were fast approaching.
A five-hour drive brought the team to what was once a lake. Now, it was mostly deep, sucking mud. The air was hot and smoky.
“Initially we thought we weren’t going to be trapping until the evening,” Meagher said. Platypuses are nocturnal, usually waking up around sunset. But these platypuses were already active, which, while concerning, meant the team could see where they were.
“There was hardly any water there,” Meagher said. “So they couldn’t duck down and hide and be cryptic like they usually are.”
Platypuses are difficult to catch; they are fast, slippery swimmers and desperately shy. The males also have a sharp, venomous spur behind one of their hind feet. The venom is not lethal to humans, but there is no antidote, and the pain can last months.
The scientists dragged a net through the remaining water in four areas of the reserve. With the help of a small aluminum boat and a pool scooper, they caught two males and five females. The animals were placed into cotton pillowcases, then given health checks — while suspended upside down by their tails — and driven to the zoo in Sydney, where they will probably remain for months, until enough rain has fallen to replenish Tidbinbilla’s supplies.
One of the biggest issues facing the zoo was that other reserves were asking them to rescue their platypuses, too, but Taronga didn’t yet have the space.
“I don’t think drought and bushfires are going away,” Meagher said. “We have to prepare for these types of climatic disasters moving forward more and more.” She was spending her days asking, “How do we have the resources to be able to say, ‘All right, let’s go rescue 50 platypus?’ ”
The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the platypus as nearthreatened. In January, a study by scientists from the University of New South Wales and the University of Melbourne estimated that climate change could lead the number of platypuses to decline by as much as 73% in the next 50 years.
In October, scientists from the University of New South Wales published a study in Global Ecology and Conservation showing that for the last decade there had been no records of platypuses in 41% of their previous range.