Wildlife Queensland is asking grey nomads to think about platypus welfare and avoiding a fine when they set off on their travels this spring.
The Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland (Wildlife Queensland) has taken the opportunity of Queensland Seniors Week (15-23 August 2009) to remind older travellers on fishing trips that the ‘opera house’ trap used to catch yabbies for fishing bait can be responsible for platypus deaths.
Use of the trap is restricted in southern states because it can cause the death of native species such as turtles and platypus.
‘Traps are commonly set in the summer, which is also the breeding season for platypuses. If a breeding female is trapped in a yabby trap any dependent young waiting in the nursery burrow for her return will slowly starve to death,’ said Des Boyland, Wildlife Queensland spokesperson.
Dr Tom Grant of the University of New South Wales, one of Australia’s leading platypus biologists, says Queensland residents going on interstate fishing trips should leave their opera house traps at home.
‘Opera house traps have been banned in public waters in Victoria, the ACT, much of NSW and all of Tasmania because of the threat they pose to aquatic wildlife,’ said Dr Grant.
‘Unfortunately they are still legal in Queensland,’ Dr Grant said.
Wildlife Queensland and the Australian Platypus Conservancy are forming an alliance to combat the threat of opera house traps.
Wildlife Queensland in action
Wildlife Queensland’s PlatypusWatch project is a community-based program that aims to find out where platypus occur.
For more information
For more information on Wildlife Queensland's activities, call us on +61 7 3221 0194 or send us an email. |
