During the countdown to the burning of the platypus effigy at Dark Mofo, a little girl climbed on her father’s shoulders for a better view of the Ogoh-Ogoh event.
“Daddy, the poor platypus is going to die,” said the child, shocked that such a wonderful, papier-mâché representation of the monotreme should go up in smoke.
The burning of the platypus effigy was the latest in the annual Balinese Hindu ritual in which Dark Mofo participants write down their fears, for these to be purged in the great fire at the end of the festival.
The platypus succeeded last year’s chosen creature, the masked owl. They are both under threat so the little girl’s concern about the death of the platypus carried with it an ominous portent.
The platypus was very much on my radar after I had seen an ABC documentary, The Platypus Guardian, a few weeks previously. By coincidence the program featured the Hobart Rivulet, the route of a trail I started to use in late May after a birdwatching friend had reported seeing my favourite bird, the pink robin, in the Cascade Gardens. My friend had also seen platypus in the rivulet.
The documentary featured platypus conservationist, Peter Walsh, and his fight to save not only the platypuses of South Hobart but to draw attention to the plight of the species nationally.
The loss of pristine waterways in the Hobart area are a microcosm of what’s happening all over the country.
Although not as threatened as the masked owl, platypus habitat has shrunk by at least 22 per cent, or about 200,000 sq km, in the past 30 years – an area about three times the size of Tasmania.
The loss of waterways does not just concern the platypus. The lakes, ponds, rivers and streams form complex environments, in which specialised flora and fauna thrive.
The Platypus Guardian did not only focus on the monotremes. There were wonderful shots of pink robins and Tasmanian native-hens, one featuring an angry interaction between a platypus and a “turbo chook” in a rock pool.
I‘ve been a member of the Friends of Sandy Bay Rivulet for many years and so I appreciate the value of the green spaces which line our rivulets before they are engulfed by concrete in the CBD.
A letter writer to the Mercury made the point shortly after the documentary aired that the founders of Hobart Town should have created a park embracing the rivulet at the time, creating a waterside walk through the heart of the city.
It might be a little too late for that but it is not too late to save our rivulets from further degradation, and perhaps restore some of the riverine vegetation and water quality.
The fact that platypuses can still be seen in the rivulet – and the pink robin along its banks – gives us hope.