After 50 years, platypuses return to Sydney's Royal National Park

May 14, 2023 9:22 PM

Platypuses return to Sydney's Royal National Park after they disappeared from the park's waterways about 50 years ago. The iconic Australian animal is believed to have disappeared from the national park after a major chemical spill on the Princes Highway in the 1970s, but numbers may already have been in decline. A joint project by the University of New South Wales, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and the World Wildlife Fund has reintroduced five females to the Hacking River, with a group of males to follow next week.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (13 comments total)

Such cool, weird, animals. You go platypuses!
posted by Windopaene at 9:38 PM on May 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

Platys in the Nasho?
Platys in the Nasho!
PLATYS IN THE NASHO
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:39 PM on May 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

opens window ^{PLATYS IN THE NASHO}
posted by Merus at 11:04 PM on May 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

Hope it works out! Reintroductions can be really tough - similar to dropping someone from San Francisco in the savannah and expecting them to thrive. You would be missing knowledge of the terrain (what's good to eat, what's good at eating you), which in native populations can come either through individual experience or be passed on by previous generations.
posted by kaibutsu at 11:21 PM on May 14, 2023

kaibutsu, these are formerly-wild platypus that were rescued from the wild during the 2019-20 bushfires, and have been kept in an as close to natural environment with as limited as possible human interaction between then and now (having to catch their own prey in an artificial stream seeded with prey)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 1:36 AM on May 15, 2023 [7 favorites]

To call them platypi’s uncool,
And platypodes’s absurd, you fool.
In English there’s no need for fusses,
Simply call them platypuses.
posted by Phanx at 2:53 AM on May 15, 2023 [10 favorites]

I dunno, you’re robbing yourself of “platypodes in the Antipodes.”
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:26 AM on May 15, 2023 [9 favorites]

More seriously, one of the things I’m getting from these posts by cpbc is how fragile these wonderful animals are. Having evolved into specific and often hostile environments, they are super vulnerable to disturbance. Not the happy story I was given growing up.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:37 AM on May 15, 2023

Platypuses are one of two of my absolutely loved Southern Hemisphere P- Animals.

The other ones are penguins, which I've been fortunate enough to see in the wild in Chile, and seeing platypuses in their native Australian habitat is one of my top bucket list items. 🤞 one day!!
posted by andrewesque at 6:57 AM on May 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

More seriously, one of the things I’m getting from these posts by cpbc is how fragile these wonderful animals are. Having evolved into specific and often hostile environments, they are super vulnerable to disturbance. Not the happy story I was given growing up

The story I am seeing again and again from wildlife experts about Australian small to medium sized mammals, is that they really, really struggle in areas with feral cats and feral foxes,

but absolutely thrive in very large fenced off feral-predator-free enclosed areas.

Step 1: install cat proof fence with outward overhang

Step 2: fox baits, cat baits, cat traps inside fenced area

Step 3: release small to medium marsupials inside fenced area

Step 4: native marsupial population blossoms, vegetation starts recovering
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:32 AM on May 15, 2023 [7 favorites]

Surely the plural of platypus should be patyplus.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:00 PM on May 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

Welcome home, friends!
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 2:17 PM on May 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Ah, the monotremes. The least respected of the mammals. They rule.
posted by brundlefly at 9:25 PM on May 15, 2023 [2 favorites]