Take me to the River
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Take me to the River
Protecting Platypuses with Josh Griffiths
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Did you know that a nursing platypus mother must eat up to her entire body weight in food every day to support her and her young? Or that male platypuses have venomous spurs near their back legs that can cause intense pain which is immune to conventional opioid painkillers? Or did you know that technically, based on the word's greek etymology, the plural of platypus is in fact 'platypodes'? These fascinating creatures are more than beloved icons and evolutionary marvels—they're indicator species whose health reflects the condition of our waterways.
The mysterious platypus is one of Australia's most beloved creatures, but these remarkable mammals face increasing threats. Josh Griffiths, Senior Technical Advisor at EnviroDNA and leading expert on platypuses, joins us to share his insights from 17 years studying these enigmatic mammals.
Josh reveals the concerning pattern threatening platypus populations across southeastern Australia. While showing remarkable adaptability to modified environments, platypuses face critical challenges from reduced water flows, habitat fragmentation, and climate change. The Millennium Drought triggered population crashes from which some areas have never recovered, creating a troubling pattern of localized extinctions and genetic isolation.
Siwan and Josh discuss environmental DNA, a tool that allows the precise detection of genetic material left behind by various species in the water. It’s non-invasive and allows for the monitoring of platypus populations on a much higher scale, while opening up opportunities for citizen science.
There are simple actions anyone can take to protect platypuses, like conserving water, cleaning hooks, lines and snags when fishing, and keeping your dog away from platypuses. Josh emphasizes that protecting platypuses isn't just about saving a charismatic species; it's about preserving the ecological systems that sustain all life, including our own.
Ready to become a platypus protector? Listen now to discover how you can help ensure the survival of our beloved platypodes (and their babies, called 'puggles'!) and the rivers they call home.
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It's about lessening our impact is essentially the top of the list. For everything that we do. I mean I get quite horrified about, I guess, how not individuals, it's more as a society we tend to, whether it's the waste that we produce or pollution, or just, you know, land clearing. I desperately want to change that. Whether it's for platypus, or whether it's for the naked mole, rat or you know a mayfly larvae, whatever it is, I mean it's we have to, and it's not just a cute fuzzy thing. I mean we have to do it for our own survival. Yeah, that's what gets me out of bed, essentially.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to Take Me to the River, sharing stories and inspiring hope with extraordinary people who care for our rivers. I'm your host, dr Shu-Anne Lovett. Today I'm talking to Josh Griffiths, senior Programme Manager and Ecologist at EnviroDNA. Josh is a leading expert on platypus, one of Australia's most iconic and unique species, and he's spent over 15 years researching and protecting this incredible creature. He's conducted over 10,000 hours of fieldwork across Victoria, queensland and Tasmania, and his work has been pivotal in ensuring the protection of platypus populations, including achieving the listing of the platypus as a vulnerable species in Victoria.
Speaker 2:As human impacts, including climate variability, take a toll on our rivers and waterways, platypus populations are under increasing pressure, especially during extreme events like droughts, flooding and bushfires. These events have pushed some populations to the brink and, while recovery efforts are underway, there is still much work to be done. Josh shares some insights from extensive monitoring programs that track population changes and recovery efforts, giving us a comprehensive view of the platypus' future in Australia's rivers and what work is being done to conserve these unique creatures. We also talk about environmental DNA, or eDNA. This is a tool that allows scientists to assess river health and biodiversity by detecting traces of genetic material left behind by various species in the water. It's cost-effective, non-invasive and highly sensitive, and it's changing the game for biodiversity research.
Speaker 2:Well hi, josh, and welcome to our conversation today. I am super excited to be finally interviewing you, because we've been trying quite a few times. Because I know that you love platypus and there are a lot of people out there who want to know more about platypus, can you tell us a bit more about yourself and your interest in platypus and how that developed?
Speaker 1:Sure Well, so I'm a wildlife ecologist but my specialty for the last 17 years has been sort of researching platypus and monitoring populations. So very quickly I learned that there weren't many people that worked with platypuses for good reasons, I've discovered, and so fairly rapidly you become, in inverted commas, an expert in the field. So I feel very privileged to be able to have worked with these critters for so long, because they are just such amazing animals, but also the public interest in them is just amazing.
Speaker 2:They are incredible animals. I watched a video that was shot, I think, in Hobart in one of the little streams there, of a guy who went out and sort of befriended a platypus, got to know the platypus and coincidentally then did this fantastic documentary really on its movements up and down the system and navigating concrete and all these sorts of things. But they are incredible, like they're actually really weird looking animals as well, aren't they?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I mean, there's countless memes about them. They've got to be the most unusual mammal in the world at least I think, and I guess that's part of their attraction. There's sort of this mystery attached to them. But they're also just incredibly adaptable little creatures. You mentioned that stream in Hobart, which is where I started my platypus research in Tasmania actually. You know that's a very highly urbanised modified stream and these animals can cope with that quite well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that that has led a little bit to misunderstanding, though, that these creatures are fine because they're highly adaptable. And isn't it great that we're seeing them in our cities? They're actually there because their own habitat is being sort of basically diminished. Would that be fair to say?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I mean, the reason I think that most people think that they're okay is that we just haven't had any good information on them previously, and up until maybe 10 years ago, even people were still kind of thinking everything's okay. And I guess it was probably really the millennium drought and you know, some of the monitoring that we were doing in Melbourne and some other groups were doing as well that, I guess, highlighted that maybe everything's not so rosy with platypuses. But yes, we do find them in the middle of cities, we find them in sort of agricultural areas, we find them in lovely, you know, forested mountain streams as well. They are very adaptable, but you know, obviously they're dependent on aquatic ecosystems and there's a lot of things that threaten those ecosystems and I guess we're really just starting to uncover what those impacts are having on platypuses. Now One of the challenges is that we simply don't know what numbers used to be like, and it makes my job really difficult when you're trying to quantify declines is that you've got no historical data to compare with. So really, all we've got to say is we know that platypus used to be here 20 years ago, 50 years ago. They're still there now, but they're most likely in much lower abundance.
Speaker 1:And we see from the very few studies that have long-term data and yes, they might be in some of the more modified environments, like a lot of the work that we do in Melbourne that we've seen these massive declines and even localised extinctions in some areas.
Speaker 1:Largely that was over the millennium drought, which not surprisingly droughts are bad for aquatic species and thankfully we are seeing populations bounce back from that now. But during those declines you do see them disappear from some areas and once they have disappeared they're very rarely going back into those waterways again. So while we see recovery, yeah, it's almost death by a thousand cuts, because I mentioned we are seeing recovery of populations, but the areas that they've disappeared from they're not recolonising for various reasons. Usually the habitat's just not suitable. So while we see the population bounce back in some areas they've disappeared permanently from others and so we get that sort of gradual erosion of their distribution. See the population bounce back in some areas, they've disappeared permanently from others and so we get that sort of gradual erosion of their distribution which in isolation doesn't look like much but over time it accumulates. And yeah, tom Grant, who's the platypus guru, I would say coins at death by a thousand cuts, and that's exactly what we're seeing.
Speaker 2:So you're talking about platypus numbers decreasing in terms of abundance? Is that having a knock-on effect with genetic diversity within the species?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's one of the things that we don't have a great handle on because no one's looking at it a great deal. We've certainly. Every time we catch a platypus we take a genetic sample. We recently completed some population genetic analysis and they're reasonably robust.
Speaker 1:I mean platypus are a little bit resilient to those, I guess, genetic declines because they are quite long-lived. They do seem to have quite naturally diverse genetics, but we're certainly seeing some of those known isolated populations within Melbourne and also one in western Victoria where we're starting to see a decline in that genetic diversity. The concern is that because they are such long-lived creatures that we're only just starting to see the tip of the iceberg and it could spiral down quite quickly. So certainly something that needs to be considered. I guess in the longer term, the more immediate concerns are really about making sure their habitat's available and the populations are going to survive. But certainly we're talking to some of these waterway managers around potential for genetic translocations in the future, which has never been done for platypuses before anyway, and how that might come about, what sort of demographics would be required and things like that.
Speaker 2:So if you're a little platypus, do you move a lot or do you have sort of a home range and that's your patch.
Speaker 1:A bit of both, to be honest. They're incredibly mobile creatures. So even when they've got their established home ranges, they're you know a female will roam over about one to two or three kilometres. Adult males can have home ranges up to six, seven kilometres long. So they are very mobile creatures and it's probably to do with a lot of their food supply and having enough reliable food across that range to support them. But we've had records of juvenile males in particular dispersing sort of 50, 60 kilometres from where they were caught as juveniles to where we see them again as adults. Now we don't record those very well because they just disappear out of areas that you know we're trapping and we never see them again. But yeah, we do see these long distance dispersals, provided that habitat is available and all connected for them to move.
Speaker 2:And do the male and females only come together to mate, or do they co-parent, so to speak?
Speaker 1:No, they're very solitary critters. So, yeah, so males and females will essentially come together for a day or a couple of days, go through their courtship routine and then mate, and then basically the male is done, he'll go find another mate if he can mate, and then basically the male is done, he'll go find another mate if he can. The female will then hopefully go into her burrow and raise her young for a few months, but even when those young emerge from the burrow they don't hang out with mum for very long. They seem to hang out together for a couple of weeks and then essentially they're independent again. So you don't see family groups, you don't see sort of long-term pairs. They're a very solitary and independent little critter.
Speaker 2:Now there's great debate over the right terminology to use for the babies. I'm sure I've heard puggle and I'm not sure that's right. You better let our listeners know what's the official term.
Speaker 1:Well, the problem is there is no official term and I think it's probably because for a very long time no one ever saw baby platypuses Like by the time they come out of their burrow they are sort of two thirds grown, so we don't see little baby platypuses at all in the wild. Puggle is actually a term for a baby echidna.
Speaker 2:There you go. That's completely wrong.
Speaker 1:Well, it's not that far off, because they are the platypus's closest relative and when they're young it's actually incredibly difficult to tell the difference between a platypus and an echidna until they're about sort of four or five weeks old and the echidna gets his long nose and so on. So that term has sort of been adopted for baby platypuses in recent years, but it's not really an official term. I think it's sort of been adopted for baby platypuses in recent years, but it's not really an official term. I think it's sort of got the public vote. I've been pushing for platypups but it's not really getting any traction.
Speaker 2:I quite like platypups. I don't know what it is about Puggle. I think it's because it's close to Snuggle and you know when they're born they look all velvety. When I've looked at the you know the video footage of Burrows they look super cute. Platterpup's actually not bad. That's pretty good.
Speaker 1:And Puggles is such a cute name. It's the kind of thing that I don't know. Maybe a child might name their toy or something like that. So I see why it's been adopted and and you know, personally I don't really mind if people call baby platypuses puggles, that's fine, but yeah, there is actually no official term as of yet, and I also know that you use the word platypuses.
Speaker 2:I have heard platypi, so tell me the right way to go there, josh, as an expert on platypuses.
Speaker 1:This is actually out of all my research, all the things that we learn about platypuses, all the actually out of all my research, all the things that we learn about platypuses all the interesting features. This is by far the most common question. I get People like platypi. Platypi is definitely incorrect, the reason being that the root of platypus is actually Greek, so the correct term is actually platypodes. Wow, but the anglicised version of that is platypuses.
Speaker 1:I quite like platypodes. I've spoken to a number of people recently that really like it. I thought I would never get it adopted. But yeah, technically, or it might be platypodes Platypodes, I'm not quite sure the correct pronunciation, but yeah, that's the correct term and it would be the same for octopodes as well.
Speaker 2:It would. It would indeed. Oh, that's fascinating. My late father-in-law is a Greek specialist so he's not around. I can't go and ask him, but that's fascinating. Okay, so we could try a whole new movement of platypodes to actually get the name changed. It's kind of funny calling it platypuses and then we have platypups. Like that just seems weird. We've got cats and dogs and all sorts of things getting mixed up there. Now that leads me to talking about predators. Are feral cats a problem, feral dogs a problem? With platypuses, what's their main sort of prey really? Or what do they prey for?
Speaker 1:Well, they don't really have any natural predators. Possibly up in northern Queensland they might get taken by the odd crocodile or two, but really in most of our waterways across their range they are the apex predator. In these waterways there's almost certainly predators of their eggs and maybe young. I've seen videos of snakes and rakali heading towards their burrows. In fact I saw an amazing video of a adult female platypus attacking and drowning a rakali as it was trying to get into its burrow, which I've never seen before.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow that would be amazing.
Speaker 1:So you know good on mama platypus, but yeah, as adults they don't really have any predators. We occasionally get records of things like eagles carrying a dead platypus off, but it's almost certainly scavenged that animal. Now they do have things like dogs and foxes in particular. No evidence of cats being an issue. They're probably a little bit too large for cats, but certainly dogs and foxes. But even then, like if they've got healthy habitat and they've got nice deep water.
Speaker 1:You know dogs and foxes aren't predating them in the water. It's only when they have to leave their nice creeks and travel across land, either because the creek dries up or we've stuck a big dam in the way or we've put a culvert under a road that's been poorly designed and they have to get out and move around it. Once they're on land they are incredibly vulnerable to predation and that tends to be where we see it happening. When I was in Tassie it was quite common to hear about. You know, someone's dog had taken a platypus, because they do seem to spend a bit more time on land in Tasmania.
Speaker 2:Is that because it's wetter, so that it's nice? Well, and that's a gross generalisation. But why should it be different in Tasmania to elsewhere?
Speaker 1:There's probably a couple of reasons, and I'm very much guessing here. Temperature is probably going to be one of them. When they leave the water, if it's warm weather, they can very easily overheat and die that way. Also, there's so many waterways in Tasmania that the distance between them isn't very far. So we know that historically, overland dispersal was quite important for them to colonise and spread their genetics between catchments. But now, because we're taking water out of our waterways, we're modifying the land around them. It's much harder for them to move between creeks, even if they're quite close. So a lot of that overland dispersal just doesn't seem to occur anymore. And when it does, we then put predators in their way as well and cars and things like that. So we're actually seeing that the genetics within catchments are sort of becoming more and more differentiated from their neighbouring ones, because that overland dispersal just isn't really happening anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was wondering that we're doing a lot of work on Macquarie perch, which is really an animal, a fish in danger, and Mark Linterman's a scientist. We actually interviewed him just a couple of days ago. He's starting an Uber service for Macquarie perch on the upper Murrumbidgee, which is his translocation program, and we said he should call it Tinder and he said no, it's Finder, of course, because he's moving these fish up and down. Now, anyone listening, I'm encouraging you do not go and pick platypus up and move them around at all. We're not at that point yet. In terms of those trends that you've talked about with platypus populations, what, what is it that is is most concerning. Is it just abundance or is it location? What is it that we're trying to do to address that, now that we've got a bit more information that, yes, indeed, the numbers are dropping?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean, I guess the main thing is getting that evidence to say, hey look, there is a problem, and then trying to identify what the problems are. And, as you would know, it's never going to be a simple, straightforward answer. But more and more we're seeing that a lot of the issues are around flow regimes and generally a reduction in water and that might be, let's say, naturally from drought, but of course that's being exacerbated through climate change and that's getting worse. We're seeing less rainfall in general in sort of southeastern Australia, and that's predicted to get worse again. The patterns of rainfall are changing. So you know, particularly here in Victoria, we've had a couple of really dry winters over the last probably five years and then wet summers. So you know, the nature of our waterways are changing and that sort of affects everything from, you know, the algae up to platypuses. But more than anything it's purely a reduction in flows, which means less habitat, less food abundance, less connectivity between waterways. That's primarily driving these sort of large population trends.
Speaker 2:So when you talk about flow, what does that actually mean? Because some of our listeners might not understand, like when you say, well, it's flowing, so what's the issue? What's a flow regime?
Speaker 1:So we know that the amount of water that goes down our waterways changes through the year. We get more rainfall in winter, so flows tend to increase. We get increases, you know, during, so flows tend to increase. We get increases, you know, during, between days as well. So the variation in flow follows kind of natural patterns and our fauna, everything that lives in that waterway, is adapted to these patterns and once we start changing them it changes how well some of those fauna can survive, and so it might be things like that.
Speaker 1:The bug community that we see changes from something that enjoys kind of this nice variable flow to when we start reducing that flow to more sort of stagnant water. It changes the type of bugs that live there. Of course those are the type of bugs that live there. Of course those are the kind of things that platypus and fish and other organisms eat, and so it changes their food resources, which might make it less suitable or less abundant for them. But then of course the amount of water in a river influences the amount of habitat that's available.
Speaker 1:So you think about the total amount of wetted area along waterways. If we start shrinking those, we get 30% less habitat, so that means it can support 30% less bugs and 30% less platypuses. So, you know, all of these things contribute to the entire ecosystem of our waterways and you know, platypuses are quite adaptable, but they do need water to live in, they do need lots of bugs to eat, and so it creates this cascade effect of, once we start, you know, reducing the amount of bugs, there's less food for platypuses and fish, and that means they might not reproduce for a year or so, on and so on. So the platypus also live quite happily in stagnant water, which is something that people don't tend to think of. They think that platypus only live in flowing water. They do survive in farm dams, in lakes and reservoirs and things as well, but they do need that food supply. They need somewhere to burrow and they need water to be able to swim and forage in.
Speaker 2:So I'm sure I heard some amazing fact about how much they need to eat. What's the body weight that they need to eat each day of the bugs that you're talking about?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is generally measured in captivity. So you know there's going to be a little bit of variability around that, but typically between about a quarter and a third of their body weight per day. So if you think about, even say, a little female platypus, that might only be a kilo. She needs, you know, 300 grams of tiny little bugs every day. Now, during breeding season, if that same female is raising young and having to lactate and raise those young, they're completely dependent on her for about three months so they only survive on her milk. They're not foraging for themselves at all at this stage. She will increase her food intake to up to her body weight per day.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a lot of beetling around to find fish.
Speaker 1:They might get lucky and find a nice juicy yabby which will keep them going for a while, but generally it's these tiny little bugs, little snails, worms and so on. So it's a lot of food, means they've got to do a lot of foraging and they can be active for 12, 14 hours a day to find that amount of food.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of work. That sounds very, very busy for the mum. Does she just get a break when they it's probably like look, you're on your own now, I'm kicking you out? Maybe that's why they don't continue to look after them after the three months. Maybe that's right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And usually by the time they get to that stage, poor mum is. So you know she's lost all her body weight. She's looking in pretty poor condition and it's probably why she actually doesn't very often reproduce on consecutive years. If she's raised young one year, she's so drained and so poor condition that she goes like I'm going to have a break now.
Speaker 2:I'll reproduce again in two years time. Oh, I didn't realise that. That's incredible. So her body will basically just not put her into, I suppose, oestrus, or whatever it might be called. I don't know what it's called for platypus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, we know that happens in other mammals. We assume that that's sort of a similar case for platypuses as well. If she doesn't have enough body fat, then yeah, she won't go into oestrus. But yeah, typically it's only about a third of any females in any population that are breeding during any one season.
Speaker 2:Now I know that really concerningly, but all credit to you. You've managed to work to get the platypus listed as vulnerable in Victoria. What does vulnerable mean and what do we need people to do in order to stop that platypus from being on that vulnerable list?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean essentially by getting platypus onto any of these threatened species list. It means they then get greater legal protection, so there's a lot of benefits to that. It also means they get a lot more sort of monetary investment. Once species are listed as threatened or vulnerable, you know governments will contribute money towards either habitat protection or more research, so there's a lot of flow-on benefits for it. Vulnerable is, I guess, a status along the continuum of things are doing fine to they're completely extinct. So vulnerable is at the lower end of that sort of threatened listing level. It means that populations are declining. There's been around a 30% decline over three generations.
Speaker 1:Victoria is really the only spot that we've got any sort of data that can tell us that, and even then it's quite localised. So the state level listings require a bit less rigour in the data. There's a bit more sort of emphasis on extrapolating that data and expert opinion, whereas to do that at the federal level we really need to have hard data to back up our assumptions a bit more, and we simply don't have that data at a national level, or we haven't. I think we probably got a fair bit of information now that we could put together a good case again. But yeah, I mean it's saying that there's certainly concerns around the population we know it's declining. There's concerns around the threats that they face and the fact that they're likely to get worse in future. And, yeah, we think that it probably should get looked at in a bit more detail at the national level as well.
Speaker 2:So if you sort of live in an urban area or even a regional area and you know that there's platypus in the local creek or waterway, what sort of things can you do to actually help that animal to survive and hopefully thrive?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's something that we get asked a lot, particularly when I do talks to community groups. People always want to know what they can do, and I mean a lot of. The threats that they face are very large scale and difficult for individuals to impact, which makes them feel a little bit helpless. But the reality is that the threats come from incremental increases in things like lack of water. So every time that we can save a bit of water whether it's a shorter shower or not, washing the car, whatever it might be you know water conservation, that water comes from platypus habitat a lot of the time. So if we can use less water in everything that we do, then there's potential for more water to get returned for the environment.
Speaker 1:Certainly, you know, if people have property, they've got creeks on their waterway. There's things that can be done in terms of improving habitat. So fencing out stock, protecting the banks that are critical for platypus to burrow on, native revegetation, removing willows all these kind of things help improve habitat. And then even those more direct things like being aware of your dogs around waterways when you're walking them, so keeping them on a leash, particularly around dawn and dusk and particularly when you get those juveniles emerging from burrows because, like most animals, juvenile platypuses are a bit naive and dumb, so they get easily taken by dogs Picking up litter, being aware of your fishing practices and retrieving your snagged lines, things like that. So all of these things are just little bits and pieces that individuals can do that collectively can make a significant impact.
Speaker 2:I love that because you've just outlined such a range, and it is something about us humans we want to act. Us humans, we want to act, and so when someone like you provides us with a whole list of ways that we can do things, that gives us confidence to act, which is very much what we try and do at the River Restoration Centre, which is to say, all rivers can benefit from your interest, from your involvement, from the tiniest thing to a really huge thing. So thank you very much. You explained that really really well. One other thing that I have heard about is opera house nets. What was the issue with opera house nets?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So for those that don't know, opera house nets are these enclosed mesh nets that when they're folded out, they look a bit like the opera house, where they got their name from. They're used to catch yabbies and crayfish in waterways and they get thrown into these deep water. They're fully submerged, they get baited with a bit of meat and the crayfish go in there and they're captured. The problem is that platypus eat crayfish, and so as soon as a small yabby or a crayfish goes into one of these nets, it becomes a baited trap for a platypus, and so platypus can get through these openings, but because they're an enclosed net, they then can't escape and, as a mammal, platypus can hold their breath for about well, maybe a little bit longer than you or me, but typically a platypus will drown within about two to three minutes.
Speaker 2:Wow, I had no idea, it was so quick.
Speaker 1:Yep, I think they can hold their breath up to about 10 minutes. If they do this cool thing. When they're evading predators, they'll wedge themselves under a log or something, which means they're not using any oxygen, they're not swimming, but when they're in a net and they're struggling to free themselves, yep, they'll drown within a couple of minutes, and so we were getting reports of maybe five or 10 platypuses a year in Victoria that were being drowned by these nets. That's probably a very small percentage of the actual problem, because we mostly would not hear about this, and so there'd been a number of attempts over the years to have these things banned for just this reason, and thankfully, a few years ago, myself and a range of other organisations sort of banded together to have another crack at it, and we managed to get them completely banned in Victoria. We got them pulled from shelves from most of the retailers voluntarily, which was great. The ban I think it was implemented in 2019, and we have not had a single reported drowning of platypuses since then.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:And the important thing is, it's not about stopping people from catching their crayfish, catching their yabbies. It was about implementing a different type of net that is just as effective but is safe for wildlife. So it wasn't removing an activity for recreational fishers if that's what they want to do, but it's about protecting wildlife while still being able to do your activities. So that was a great win. It was probably one of the things that stands out for me over my almost 20 years just an unnecessary threat that they were facing, and not so much the fact that it was, I guess, causing declines in populations, but it's an animal ethics issue, like the thought of one of these animals drowning in one of these nets was just horrible for everyone. So I'm so grateful for the group of people that gave up their time and efforts to make that happen, and we're now seeing that flow on to other states as well, which has been great.
Speaker 2:I was about to ask is that happening elsewhere? And I think one of the things I've noticed with platypus I have a number of friends to do platypus watch. They'll go and do platypus surveys. There's a lot of public interest and actually ability to get involved in caring for platypus, whether it's going out doing the sightings, working on habitat. Have you seen that grow over the last few years or has it stayed pretty much the same in your area?
Speaker 1:No, definitely growing, and I guess it's one of the things that we tend to do a lot of that sort of community engagement and advocacy type things, whether it's just talking to groups about our trapping results, which they're often interested in. More recently we've had, you know, community groups doing their own rigorous monitoring using environmental DNA which people can go out and do themselves. So you know, that's kind of that next level of getting people actively involved in some of the research. Certainly, as you mentioned before, you know people wanting to do something to make a change.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that I do see, particularly working in an urban space, a lot we see issues around litter in our waterways and platypus are really good at getting entangled in anything that's an enclosed loop. And when I sort of mentioned to people, I try to not show the photos anymore, but I mentioned to people some of the horrific things I see from something like a rubber band or a hair tie, and then I'll get emails from primary school students the next week saying, oh, we picked up seven hair ties on the way to school this morning. It's just amazing. People really resonate with some of those issues and then actively go out and do something about it. So yeah, I guess giving people a call to action is always what we strive for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love those stories and I want to come to environmental DNA, but before we do that, what's the most surprising or funny experience you've had relating to platypus? Because they're an amazing looking creature with that tail and then the feet and, like the whole thing, they look like they're an accumulation of lots of different animals. But, yeah, what's the most funny or surprising thing you've had happen?
Speaker 1:oh gosh, you put me on the spot there um I mean I will always remember the, the first platypus I ever caught.
Speaker 1:That's just a bit of a personal milestone. I actually the one that sticks out to me. I I got six platypus in a single net one night. So platypus I mentioned. Single net one night. So platypus I mentioned they're quite solitary creatures. Before we often do entire night surveys and you know, catch a single animal, that's it. Yeah, to get six in a single net was both a bit concerning but also amazing, and it was I almost had to like juggle them as I'm pulling them out and getting them into bags. Yeah, so that was quite amazing, considering I, you know I can go for a week of trapping and not catch six.
Speaker 2:In some places Were they related. Do you think had they just come out of a burrow together or were they, you know, a whole mix.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not quite sure what drove it. It was kind of on the edge of the Yarra River, I think. Maybe there was a bit of flow in the creek that I was in and flow tends to trigger a bit of exploration by platypuses. So I think they all sort of came out the river and went straight into our net. Yeah, I mean, we check the nets every couple of hours so that they're not stuck there for very long. So for that to happen in such a short time period was quite amazing.
Speaker 2:Potentially some of the males chasing some of the females as well. It was that time of the year. Maybe it was date night, who knows?
Speaker 1:It could have been. Yes, it was platypus tinder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, exactly. Well, tinder, or oh, what do they have? They have webbed, anyway. We could go down a whole tangent there. So when you're surveying them, just to let people know, of course these nets are for survey purposes only, it's not as a sport when you bring them in and you talk about genetic material, is that a blood sample? I know for fish it's a fin clip. What is it that you're going to keep, I guess, and then you can refer back to later? Basically, can't you that you can let the animal go and you've still got a whole lot of detail about that animal?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, and yes, I should clarify. These surveys are structured. They're designed for understanding how populations are going, both numbers and demographics and so forth. But yeah, so every time we catch a platypus they all get a little microchip so we can identify them again. We take a number of measurements check their health, as I mentioned before. They do get tangled in litter a bit, so I check them over to make sure that they're clear of litter. And then we take a little piece of their webbing from their back foot, so the webbing is sort of like a keratinised skin. So we take about a one millimetre by one millimetre little snip from that which goes into some ethanol and then on a shelf for analysis later on.
Speaker 1:And so when we do that analysis, we can look at things like genetic diversity of the population as a whole to see how healthy that population is. We can estimate things like effective population size, which is a really important metric for wildlife populations. It's the number of animals that are actually reproducing and contributing to future generations. We can look at how related individuals are between each other. We can track their parents and so on. So yeah, there's a lot of information that we can get from a tiny little bit of DNA from them and then that whole process. They get back in the water within about 15 minutes. They can go back on and live their platypus lives for the rest of the night. So it's about sort of minimising stress and disturbance to the animals as much as possible.
Speaker 2:Now Mark Lintermans, who I just mentioned earlier. He got a platypus when he was actually out surveying for Macquarie perch and he actually got spurred. Have you ever been spurred?
Speaker 1:He was really, really sick, yeah, oh wow, I'd love to chat to him about it.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't been spurred.
Speaker 1:I think that tends to be what happens.
Speaker 1:The people that do get spurred, it tends to be sort of members of the public that might have, I don't know, found a sick or injured platypus, or maybe hooked one while they're fishing or something, and I feel like they're often just not aware that platypus are one of the few venomous mammals in the world.
Speaker 1:And you know, as you do, you would probably cradle the animal underneath and you get a you know half an inch spur buried into your arm or hand. So, um, yep, their venom is pretty nasty. It's really only during the breeding season that the males, um, their venom production goes through the roof. Their venom glands swell up and they get a bit. They get a bit gnarky, but usually, if if you're aware of it and you sort of know how to handle them correctly, it's quite easy to actually avoid it, because they do have quite short limbs and the spurs can only really reach directly underneath them. So, bea, I have heard it's quite a horrible experience and things like all our opiates, morphine and so on have no effect on it. It's a very painful experience.
Speaker 2:It is. I'd really felt for him and, of course, mark's been surveying for like decades and never had this happen. It was an accident, I think, in the sense that he was actually trying to free the animal who'd got caught, and the animal did go free, but, yeah, mark was sick for quite some time. Yeah, yeah. So there you go. I'm happy to put you in touch with him and he can tell you his story.
Speaker 1:Maybe I better run him through the correct handling procedures, just in case it happens again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there you go. I'm sure you can see if he's receptive to that or not. Okay, so one of the things you've said is about platypus being apex predators, but also that they rely on a whole lot of bugs. I want to now move to sort of your day-to-day job, which is EnviroDNA. Can you explain what EnviroDNA actually is?
Speaker 1:Sure, I mean, essentially it's another tool that we can use to survey wildlife. All organisms are leaving DNA behind, whether it's a bug, whether it's a platypus, whether it's a bit of algae, whatever it might be. In aquatic systems, that DNA sort of disperses throughout the water. It flows downstream, and now our genetic techniques, the tools and the machines that we use are now so sensitive and, I guess, getting cheaper to use that we can detect these tiny traces of DNA.
Speaker 1:So what we do with platypus is that we've designed this genetic probe that matches a segment of the platypus DNA that is unique to that species. So this probe will only bind to its matching DNA. So it ignores everything else there and says this is my matching, this is my platypus DNA binds to it and that lets off a little fluorescent signal to say, hey, here I am and we can measure that fluorescence. That's actually what we're looking at, and the amount of fluorescence correlates with the amount of DNA and so we can look at. You know, how strong that signal is, and so forth. But it's an amazing technique. It's another tool that we've got in our sort of wildlife tool belt and Amazing technique. It's another tool that we've got in our sort of wildlife tool belt and we can use it to detect platypus. We can detect a lot of fish species. Essentially, any species that's leaving DNA behind we're able to detect using this methodology.
Speaker 2:So do you sort of go and do a scoop and then you know, pop it into a I don't know a machine and then it spits out all the DNA that it's found, or is it more that you have a specific thing that you're looking for in that area?
Speaker 1:It depends on what we're trying to achieve.
Speaker 1:So typically, if I'm looking for platypus, I'm probably taking a number of samples over a quite large area because they are very widespread and dispersed, but we will take an amount of water directly out of the waterway.
Speaker 1:We tend to filter it on site, so we pass this water through a very fine filter, which might be anything from sort of about one to five microns. So we're not having to transport water around the place, we just have this filter that captures all of our cells, all of our DNA, and of course, that's DNA from a range of different organisms it could be algae, fungi, bacteria, hopefully some platypus in there and then it goes back to our lab and we have a very good lab team that can then extract that DNA, apply our platypus probe and tell us whether platypus DNA is there or not. So it's for something like platypus that are an incredibly difficult species to study, very time and labour intensive process to try to capture them. It's really revolutionised what we're able to do and the scale that we're able to do things. But essentially, yeah, we can do the same with a range of different organisms.
Speaker 2:So you were saying that even citizen science is getting in on the eDNA. Is that sort of a more controlled just looking for one thing? How does that work?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was something we probably didn't really think of when we started going down this path. But the water collection process is incredibly simple. It can be very simple. So I've done it with eight-year-olds, I've done it with 80-year-olds. With some simple instructions and some guidelines, people can go out and collect their own water samples and then send them back to our lab for the analysis, and so it means that we can design survey programs with some scientific rigour so we can select the sites where we want them to be, to answer what our key questions are, and still get the community involved in collecting those samples and maybe doing some habitat assessments while we're out there.
Speaker 1:So what we're finding is it doesn't just hit the sort of citizen part of citizen science, but we can actually get some really good, rigorous data out of it as well, which I think you know. Sometimes citizen science programs are a bit, I guess, ad hoc, which doesn't mean the data is no good. But you know, ideally when you're doing these wildlife surveys, you want some rigour and some good design behind them. So with this we're able to tick both boxes and, as an example, we actually did a statewide survey of platypuses throughout Victoria a couple of years ago and it was I think it was about 90% done by citizen scientists, and during COVID as well, which was just another layer of complexity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they would have been doing it alone as well If it was in COVID. I do know about citizen science because my mum led Waterwatch here in the ACT for many, many years and as a scientist herself, she was really concerned about getting rigor into that program because sometimes people are going oh you know, that's just Waterwatch. But it's actually become a very rigorous testing process, here in the ACT at least, and I know it's suffered from funding fluctuations, as a lot of these things do in some of the other states. But they now produce every year something called a CHIP, which is a catchment health indicator report, and it goes through every catchment in this area with all of the water quality details and you can see how eDNA could provide yet another level to say that link between. So this is the quality of the water and this is what we're finding is in the water as a result. So what do you think the applications for eDNA are going to be? I mean, it's a clearly an area that's going to keep growing, I would think yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean I think the the value from I mean, look, there's a range of things that can be done. I think the highest value is doing things at scale. So, whether that's at a catchment or a statewide or a national scale, that we simply can't do with traditional techniques. So, and even with I mean, if I got unlimited funding thrown at me to do a platypus program, with trapping, there's areas that I simply cannot set my nets I can't access, you can't put the net safely, so you're much less restricted. When you just have to go and take a water sample, it's much easier to do. So doing things at scale and then being able to, I guess, correlate that data with things like water quality or vegetation type or land use, it means that we've now got the tools to gather data, to do good analysis. So that's sort of what I look at it from a single species perspective.
Speaker 1:But what we're often doing with, say, citizen science projects, is that maybe the community is interested in platypus and we can go and get data on platypuses, but we can use those same samples to scan for, say, all the fish in the area which maybe the community is not as interested in but the catchment management authority really want to know.
Speaker 1:So you know, we can sort of use platypus as that flagship to then gather information on a range of other species and I think going forward we'll start seeing people look at the whole spectrum of biodiversity. So we can look at bacteria and fungi and macroinvertebrates right up to platypus. So we're getting a much more holistic view of what the biodiversity is in an area. It also gives you much greater power to detect change, because you're looking at hundreds, if not thousands, of organisms at each site as opposed to, you know, maybe half a dozen fish. So you know the statisticians will love those kind of numbers, but it's something that's, I guess, just starting to evolve a bit more. People are very much still focused on those big vertebrate species, but I think more and more we'll start seeing people look at this sort of more holistic view.
Speaker 2:It sounds incredible to me. I know for us we've been looking at eDNA to see if we can identify if there's any redfin, in particular stretches of the Murrumbidgee River, because they pose a big threat to the Macca perch. But, as you say, it's one tool, isn't it? Because we've also backed that up with, you know, going out and actually fishing and seeing if we find any. Unfortunately we didn't, which is really, really good.
Speaker 1:And often that's how we're seeing it implemented, because EDNA can be really sensitive. It's great at picking up those early incursions. So maybe an early warning signal, but it might trigger then maybe to go out and do some more intensive electrofishing or trapping. But you can do it in a very targeted way because you've already got evidence to say, hey look, this species is there. So the combination of techniques is an incredibly powerful way to go about it.
Speaker 2:And, in terms of analysing those samples, is it likely that artificial intelligence is going to be able to speed that process up, or is it a very human endeavour?
Speaker 1:Good question. I mean, more and more the processes are becoming automated. So you know, we have a machine that will essentially do most of the DNA extraction side of it. We have another machine that will do some of the liquid handling. Ai is probably very far out of my area of expertise. I think where AI can probably play a bigger role is more at the data analysis side of it. So those sort of machine learning models that you can then train to. I guess if you're constantly feeding data in, you can constantly keep reanalyzing the information and spitting out sort of live data. But I don't know, it might put me out of a job.
Speaker 2:Look, I was really sceptical about good old chat GPT, but I am finding it actually so useful in doing that bit of that initial analysis of something. I can put a whole lot of gump in, because we do so much science communication I shouldn't say gump so I can put four pages of something in and say what's this actually about, and it's actually quite good at pulling out some of those key messages. You can also go down another absolute rabbit hole where you ask it to create an image of something I've seen your talks.
Speaker 2:You've seen my talks. Okay, you've seen my talk, right? Yes, so you saw my talk of my brain, which I still actually really like that one anyway. So look, as we come to the end of our conversation, which has been fascinating. I've really enjoyed it. What's next for you in terms of upcoming projects? Have you got anything on the horizon or something you're doing right now? That's particularly interesting.
Speaker 1:I mean, one of the things that I'm really trying to get up and running is that I guess that national assessment of the status of platypuses. You know when we, when we looked at the Victorian data a few years ago, victoria was about the only spot that had enough data to look at this in any sort of rigor. I think over the last sort of five or six years we've now got a heap of mostly eDNA based data throughout sort of New South Wales and up into at least southern Queensland. Most of the rest of Queensland is a bit of a black hole at this stage, but I think we've now got enough contemporary data. The historical data is always a challenge, but I think we're never going to get more historical data. So, you know, I think we've got a really good current baseline, so I'd love to be able to do a national assessment in that way.
Speaker 1:I guess mostly my role these days outside of Platypus is about facilitating uptake of how people can use eDNA for their purposes. So working with waterway managements and government agencies and even sort of private industries around. You know, what is it that they want to understand that maybe they haven't been able to previously, and can we sort of use these new tools to help give them that data so that they can make better decisions. So and often we might use platypus as that flagship. You know, often if we're improving things improving habitat for platypuses what we're really doing is improving things for bugs, but people aren't as passionate and excited about that.
Speaker 2:No, I always feel sorry for those people who get excited about bugs, but I guess, because mum did Waterwatch for so long, I can tell the difference between a damselfly and a caddisfly.
Speaker 2:You know, I can get into that and I actually find it's really good pairing up the water watch talk with the platypus talk. So Jed, who's a water watch coordinator with us here he also works for us on Rivers of Carbon Projects. He did a fantastic community event where he was able to talk about you know how much the platypus eat and that this is the sort of things they're eating, and then to go and look at what was in the water, and so I love that connection and I think when you can use something like platypus, which is just such an amazing mammal, it's great because you've captured the imagination and from that point you can then actually explain what else is going on. So thank you so much for all the work you're doing. It's actually really appreciated by people like us who are really trying to connect with people. Look, before we head off, we have three questions that we ask everybody at the end of every episode, and the first one is do you have a favourite river or water body?
Speaker 1:that you like to go to. Wow, that's a tough one. So I live out in East Gippsland these days and there's a number of beautiful waterways out here. There are, I think, maybe the Wingin River, which is one of the first ones that I sort of came out and camped and did some kayaking along. That still holds a bit of a special place, so I'll go with that one, I think.
Speaker 2:Go with that one. And where is it that you feel most connected to country and to nature generally?
Speaker 1:it that do you feel most connected to country and to nature generally? Well, now that I've moved out of the city probably at my house I struggle to leave it to go back into Melbourne. These days I don't know that I have a. I love the diversity of Australia. I've spent time out in the middle of Australia, in the desert areas, you know. I've been up in tropical regions and in temperate forests. I just like getting out there and exploring, whether it's for work purposes or you know me and my partner just like going camping and hiking and probably bird watching mostly these days. So there's just something about and I think there's some really good science behind it about the calming effect that nature has on people. So yeah, I'm not sure I can focus on one particular place. It's more just being out and enjoying what we have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and look, I think you're right. Mark and I were talking about the desert and I just love that red dirt. There's just something about that red dirt.
Speaker 1:I can go out to my car and still find it People talk about how barren our deserts are, but when you work out there you realise that I mean most of it's nocturnal and they're all sort of small critters that you don't usually see. But it's an amazing place and it's something that probably a lot of people don't get to experience.
Speaker 2:I think you're absolutely right. So my final question and I'm sure that listeners can hear the passion in your voice and how you light up when you're talking about platypuses and platypups and all those things what's driving you to do what you do? What is it that keeps you doing what you do in this area?
Speaker 1:It's about lessening our impact is essentially the top of the list for everything that we do. I mean I get quite horrified about, I guess, how not individuals, it's more as a society we tend to, whether it's the waste that we produce, or pollution, or just, you know, land clearing. I desperately want to change that land clearing. I desperately want to change that, Whether it's for platypus, or whether it's for the naked mole rat or you know, a mayfly larvae, whatever it is. I mean it's we have to, and it's not just a cute fuzzy thing. I mean we have to do it for our own survival. Yeah, that's what gets me out of bed, essentially.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm so pleased that you get out of bed and that you work on this. It's wonderful. It's one of the reasons I love this industry so much, because everyone I speak to is driven by that need to make a difference or to make it better or to help another species, in many cases, or a waterway. So thank you so much for the conversation today. We will definitely put some links with the show notes to EnviroDNA so people can go and find out more as well, of course, some links to some of the recommended places that you can find out more about platypus. So thank you very, very much, josh. I hope you have a wonderful afternoon.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much. Pleasure, it's a pleasure, thank you.
Speaker 2:You can subscribe to Take Me to the River wherever you get your podcasts. Visit arrcau forward slash podcast to learn more. That's arrcau forward slash podcast. We acknowledge and respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional and continuing custodians of the country and the rivers on which we live, learn, love and play. We respect and learn from elders, past, present and emerging, valuing their knowledge, insights, cultures and connections to the waterways we all love and care for.