Professor Richard Kingsford, a co-author and Director of CES, said there is much to be learnt about the complex effects of dams and sustainable management of our rivers. “Reducing negative impacts through better water management will be vital in preserving this iconic species, which is experiencing multiple and interacting threats.” “Protecting platypuses remains a real challenge because much of their habitats coincide with regulated rivers,” co-author and researcher Dr Gilad Bino said. “This is probably as a result of restoration efforts on the Snowy River and maintaining the timings of flows on the Severn River,” Dr Hawke said. Researchers found no differences in captures upstream and downstream of other large dams in the study, indicating that the way in which water is regulated, including the use and timing of environmental flows, were important. “We were particularly concerned about the low captures and the lack of female platypuses below Dartmouth Dam on the Mitta Mitta River, probably because the dam has changed the seasonality and temperature of flows so much,” Dr Hawke said. Setting up platypus nets on the Severn River. That assessment found that river regulation was one of the major threats to the platypus, along with historic land clearing and extreme droughts.įor this study, the CES researchers surveyed platypuses in unregulated and regulated rivers on upstream and downstream sections of large dams across three regions of eastern Australia: the Upper Murray, Snowy, and Border River.
The platypus is listed as endangered in South Australia and was listed as a threatened species in Victoria in January this year.Ī landmark assessment by the scientists last year recommended the platypus be listed as a threatened species under Australia’s and NSW's environmental legislation. Their findings, published in the international scientific journal Aquatic Conservation, are concerning as much of the distribution of platypuses overlaps with highly regulated or dammed rivers. “The way dams are managed, such as the timing and volume of the release of water, can significantly impact on platypuses living downstream,” lead author Dr Tahneal Hawke said.
The researchers from UNSW Sydney’s Platypus Conservation Initiative in the Centre for Ecosystem Science (CES) say the natural flow regime needs to be replicated on dammed rivers if platypus populations are to recover in areas below large dams. Some large dams are having a serious impact on downstream platypus populations, an extensive three-year study by UNSW scientists has found.
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