Switching off the television news one evening with its horrors of the Israel-Gaza and Ukraine wars, I took myself to the Hobart Rivulet Park to indulge in the soothing power of nature and my latest pre-occupation – platypus watching.
My heart sank, however, at the sight of a different kind of upheaval laid out before me.
An overnight mega-storm had washed what looked like a tonne of litter from the Hobart tip into the watercourse.
I’ve long marvelled how the platypus have managed to exist in such a semi-urban environment and now I held fears for their continued survival.
Trash littering the rivulet has been a constant problem for the monotremes, as the “Platypus Whisperer” Pete Walsh explained in a hit ABC documentary about the watercourse’s popular residents recently.
And, as the Mercury reported, Pete had to be called into action after the storm to rescue a platypus enmeshed in plastic, one of four he has found recently.
The plight of rivulet’s platypus has been taken to heart by local residents and the pupils of South Hobart Primary School, the latter producing beautifully illustrated posters, urging walkers to collect and bag rubbish they find. The Hobart City Council, too, does its best to keep the rivulet free of plastic and other debris but its staff are sometimes overwhelmed.
The pollution produced by the latest storm was exacerbated by rubbish bins being knocked over by the high winds, their contents swept into drains and ultimately into the rivulet itself.
I was just grateful it had not happened just a week previously when by chance I found myself chatting to two separate families visiting from Sydney who had specifically gone to the rivulet to see the platypus after seeing the documentary. I was happy to take them to a spot near the historic women’s prison site in South Hobart where I regularly see the animals.
At that time I thought that the tourist authorities in Tasmania might want to actively promote platypus watching as a crowd-puller, perhaps persuading the council to erect a viewing platform opposite the prison. A few of Tasmania’s unique birds, including the native-hen and yellow wattlebird seen there, could be thrown in for good measure.
Surveying the debris that evening I thought better of the idea and turned for home.
The rivulet had been my escape from humankind’s wars and now I had to contend with another concern closer to home – the sea of poisonous plastics engulfing our world. It begs the question: what are humans doing to themselves, and to their environment?
As I walked home I saw a lone figure on the rivulet bank – a young man with a hooked pole, hooking debris out of the shallows. A young man trying to make a difference on the bank of the rivulet, in the kingdom of the platypus. My faith in humankind was restored.