 |
| Magic creek, Lovis Corinth, 1892 | |
| | | | It
was a warm afternoon when I took a walk in the bush behind our
house. I like going to the small waterfall where the vegetation is very
lush. Walking along a stream filled with birdsong I spotted car
tyres, an oil drum, and an array of litter caught between the rocks. The
soil on the banks was still slippery from the last rain. Long before I
reached the waterfall I could hear the gurgling sounds of the water
descending over rocks. It was then that my eyes fell on a rapid movement
in a deep pool. A small creature was in a frenzy, splashing and
thrashing. The vegetation had been cleared at that site for access, so I
decided to investigate the commotion. I saw a bit of shiny brown fur,
then a duck bill and finally the beaver-like tail. A platypus - but
something did not feel right. Rushing down the bank I could see how
the creature had a bright plastic ring caught around its beak, something
around its neck and one hind foot dragged a tangle of fishing lines
along. |
|
 |
| John Lewin, Platypus,1808 |
My feeling was that the animal had probably been in
this hopeless situation and without food for a long time. I took off my
jacket, walked into the water and caught it by wrapping my clothing around
it. It was a female as it did not have a poisonous spur. She struggled
and was very slippery with that soft dense mole-like fur. I talked to her and
stroked her lightly. Reaching for my keys I managed to get my pocket
knife out and opened it. First I cut the tight hairband from her neck.
The plastic fishing tangle had cut into her foot and it was hard to free
the struggling animal from the mess. Finally I cut the plastic
which looked like a music festival wristband from her beak. I tried to
work fast, taking care to not stress the animal or me out. Time disappeared and I have no
idea how long we endured together. When all the garbage was removed I
slowly opened my jacket to release her. She froze, looked at me with her
beady brown eyes and then she did a speedy dash to the other side of the
pond. She disappeared into a well hidden burrow. Still in a daze I walked
home, dripping wet. It took me days to recover from the idea that
this has been happening in my community.
I imagined how
the creature could have easily got trapped in roots with its exoskeleton
of human debris and drowned. Maybe the
egg-laying mammal's offspring in the burrow could have starved to death
slowly
without milk. The duck-billed platypus is almost blind and deaf, but the
highly sensitive bill detects by touch and with special sensors it
perceives electric charges that are emitted by living organisms. They
forage
mostly at the bottom of waterways sensing for their favourite foods
such as shrimps and worms and yabbies. Any debris in its way can easily
get caught on the animal, tangle it and finally drown it within a very short time.
 |
| Gould John, Duckbilled Platypus |
Back in school I told my friends how
upset I was that such a unique animal, which is an icon of New South
Wales, has to live under such life threatening conditions. Some of my
friends agreed to help clean up some of the junk that mostly is washed
down with the rain from the suburbs. (pdf) They call it 'stormwater'. In
biology, I chose to write an essay about this special Australian
monotreme. We also learned to take DNA samples for the animals'
presence. Later my friends and I joined Rivercare to check on the
quality of water in our rivulet on a regular basis. Here, in the
following, I cite some parts of my writing about my unlearning
about the platypus' condition. The platypus' original home is in the freshwater systems
along the east coast of Australia and Tasmania. In the mainstream they call the animal Ornithorhynchus anatinus. As we are on Gumbaynggirr land, (Coffs Coast) we also call it Muluny.
 |
| Franz Marc, The Yellow Cow, 1911 |
When European
settlers arrived on Indigenous lands they navigated the new territory
via the waterways. The vegetation had to go so their very thirsty cattle
and other livestock could access the banks. Deforestation also provided the wood for the colony. The trampling hoofed animals and the land clearing soon eroded the banks
and made the riparian zone along creeks collapse into the water, making
it murky with sediments and animal poop. Many Platypuses' burrows were
destroyed, depriving the local wildlife of shelter.
"Our cattle used to fall into them and starve and break their
legs and
all sorts of things. In those early days, platypus were in their
hundreds... when I left here in 1936 there were still platypus in our
creeks and we cursed them a bit because we lost stock because of their
burrows." (source)
 |
| Map of Australia, Taylor, Thomas Griffith & Beckit, H. O. (192-?]) |
Water
extraction and dams for irrigation altered free‐flowing water bodies
leading to water scarcity for wildlife. Punching holes into the
vegetation led to a fragmentation of the
home of the monotreme, which is not a fast walker with its webbed feet
and it has a slow lizard gait on land.
 |
Ferdinand Hodler, Woodcutter, 1910
|
In
addition to habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation the newcomers also spread their imported animals. Apart from ungulates, they also
brought their baggage of fast and vicious carnivores: dogs, cats and
foxes. "The feral fox and cats are responsible for over 90 per cent of
all mainland mammal extinction." (source) The out of control livestock and runaway pets became feral pests.
Introduced plants soon became invasive weeds and infested the cleared
landscapes, making the land, but specifically the waterways
inaccessible. The unleashed baggage of non-native fauna and flora 'to improve
the country' became a high-cost Pandora's box.
 |
Franz Marc , Three Animals (Dog, Fox and Cat), 1912
|
After the
water and land were monopolised for settlers' needs and their cohabiting animals, the little furry thing, among koalas and
kangaroos came in handy as a cash cow for export. The slaughter and use
of native animals was seen as normal and acceptable at the time. It took
up to hundred Platypus' pelts to make a blanket or rug in the 19th
century. The thriving fur industry had a deadly impact on the Platypus.
 |
| Wunderkammer, Leverian Museum, Sarah Stone, 1770 |
Back
home in the motherland the new oddities from far flung regions of the
empire outpost aroused curiosity. The first specimens of monotremes
appeared to be a hoax to the senses. An added duckbill stitched onto a
mole? A chimera of mammals, birds and reptiles that arose over millions
of years? The science of the day was baffled by the ‘duck mole’. In
keeping with the ignorance of the time everything unknown to Europeans
was thought of as a priori ‘inferior’ on the evolutionary scale. The
'freak of nature' of an egg-laying mammal was explained by being an
archaic and unchanged ‘primitive’ animal.
 |
Natural History Museum, Wet Collection Wing, Berlin
|
The thirst for
knowledge, prestige and conversation pieces filled the continental
Wunderkammers (cabinets of wonders) with a plethora of exotica. Stuffed
or pickled specimens of platypuses populated the dusty glass cabinets
and pandered to the lust for the new. The 'skeletons' that did not
make it into the closet, got dissected for their eggs. “Literally
thousands of preserved and stuffed platypuses and their uteri were
shipped back to Britain for research. “ (source)
Science demanded a blood toll to advance the insights and power of their canon. The extraordinary served to
solidify the prevailing order.
 |
Natural History Museum, Wet Collection Wing, Berlin
|
After 1912 when the hunt for fur and 'materials' for science slowed down, the human population expanded especially along the east coast of Australia, following the water catchments. In reshaping the landscape, they made 19 out of the 20 ecosystems collapse. (source) Today, 90% of the Australian population form a tightly-knit settlement of
peri-urban, sub-urban to urban areas. Sprawling exurbia overlaps with the
remnant of platypuses' habitat.
 |
| Stuffed Birds, Natural History Museum, Berlin |
"A lot of platypus problems arise from changes to habit and
the environment in general, but in particular many populations have been
put at risk because of direct impact from what people are doing." (source)
The freshwater systems of eastern Australia are the platypuses only
home. Expanding population growth with their baggage of livestock, pets and weeds converts ecotopes and displaces endemic species. The platypuses' liquid habitat is under threat from a number of anthropogenic impacts. Their
riparian food webs have diminished, are fragmented and degraded. Their
habitat in Australia has shrunk by 22 per cent in the past 30 years. (source)
Population growth and the endless encroachment by settler culture demands water for their extractive industries, industrial
agricultural and domestic supplies. Dams are seen as the answer in the driest inhabited continent in the world.
The insatiable collective thirst for water leads to 'bottling it up' diverting it to one species alone and
their purposes. Australia is also a massive net exporter of virtual water. (source) Damming water alters the flow
patterns and the ecological connectivity negatively. "The building of
large dams fragments our platypus populations, so they
can't connect up between each other." (source)
For the platypus there is no life without water.
Both the quantity and quality of the available water have been impacted
by humans. "The primary threat to platypuses appears to be a reduction
in surface
water and flows due to drought, altered flow regimes, and water
extraction for domestic, industrial and agricultural purposes." (source)
 |
| A bitumen-sealed road meets lawns, NSW |
The
remaining waterways the platypus depends on is also the dumping
ground for homo sapiens’ waste. The human habitat consists
mainly of impervious surfaces, of bitumen and brick. Buildings, carparks, hot roads and driveways make up this non-absorbent ground. On
such a terrain, rain turns
into a fast surface runoff, washing away soil, petrol, pesticides,
faeces and other contaminants. The rapid flow of 'city floods’ might
clean the hard veneer of the urban space by ‘flushing’ the
city muck downstream, but for the creek residents living at the other
end it could mean that their offspring drowns in the burrow and a
toxic turbid cocktail is dumped in their pool. It's a life in the
drain.
 |
| Franz Marc, Long Yellow Horse, 1913 |
The unwanted
externalities, the excreta of humans, their livestock and pets end up in
a cost effective way in the environment. The once sacred veins of water
have become a drain for discharging untreated sewage. Large parts of
the population are on septic tanks. Very often there are untreated sewage spills or rivers are flushed with sewage. Agricultural run-off from piggeries,
dairies, feedlots and
abattoirs also add their bit. The home of the platypus resembles a
cesspool. At times they get stuck in the middle of a sewage treatment
plant. (source) The platypus is literally "disappearing in the 'cesspit". (source).
 |
Settler Angel Gabriel Capararo Reserve on Gumbaynggirr land with garbage
|
A scarcity of public toilets makes local residents and visiting motorists "shit in our waterways" (source). In the local area of the Bellingen Shire's Promised Land the Never Never River overflows with motorists each holiday season. SUVs push into the riparian zone and turn the small Mid North Coast stream into a motorised campsite where one can "set your inner flower child free". There are no toilets, but 'wild toileting' leaves heaps of distinctive calling cards behind. The
growing tourist numbers and illegal camping are outpacing the
'infrastructure'. (source) Many creeks in the area, like the ones near the next coastal city, Coffs Harbour, appear like drains. It is there at the Big Blueberry where aquatic creatures silently die.
 |
Promised Lands, Never Never River with combustion engines
|
Apart
from the E. coli
pollution, industrial agriculture also left a legacy
of toxins in the biological deserts they have produced. Pesticides,
herbicides, fungicides poisoned the land, the water and the air.
"Agricultural and domestic use of pesticides is very common in Australia
and is a particular concern. A huge variety of chemicals is used and
little is known about their persistence in the environment and their
long-term impact on coastal ecosystems." (source) Cattle dips have been contaminated by a range of chemicals, such as very persistent arsenic and DDT residues. "There are 1,648 dip sites scattered throughout the far North Coast of NSW" (source) "some of which contain a massive residue legacy." (source).
 |
| Ferdinand Hodler, Mountain stream near Champéry, 1916, detail |
Additionally a diverse array of pharmaceuticals
is dumped into the
streams and riparian food webs. The residents of these waterways are
being subjected to an involuntary large cocktail of medication:
antidepressants, painkillers, antibiotics, 'the pill', anti-fungal drugs, hormones and
Alzheimer's medication. "Platypus living at the most contaminated site could ingest about half a
human dose of antidepressants every day. Ecologists found nearly 70
different medications in water-dwelling creepy-crawlies at creeks.."(source)
 |
| Heinrich Harder, Duck billed platypus, 1916 |
The constantly increasing global consumption of medicines by sickened humans
contributes to the systematic release of chemicals into the
environment. Widespread diagnostic radiology technology (CTs, MRI) requires various contrast agents. Medical imaging often utilises iodinated
X-ray contrast media (ICM) Most of the medical agents are of insoluble
substances, which are released in effluents to the surface
waters. The substances are highly persistent pollutants in nature and
are only poorly removed by conventional wastewater treatment. All ends
up in natural waters, groundwater, drinking water and in the soil. "It was reported that more than 600 pharmaceutical substances are present
in aquatic environments... some of these compounds cause undesirable
effects in living organisms." (source) The ecotoxicological effects of chemical contaminants pose a health risk for all living beings.
 |
Otto Dix, A Nocturnal Encounter with an Insane Man, 1924
|
After
habitat degradation and the abuse of rivers as drains, there are also
the unwanted solid substances that are dumped in waterways. It is part
of consumer culture, to take the goodies and discard the unwanted
(packaging) wherever one happens to be. Human debris litters the solar system by now. Apart from our space junk, the Earth itself is turned into a giant junkspace. Ubiquitous long-lasting plastics form junkyards on land, in the air, in the ocean and in fresh water bodies. Like a boomerang, the microplastic artefacts re-enter the human body, unborn and accumulate in the organs. For native wildlife such as air-breathing platypus, turtles, rakali and birds the garbage becomes a trap in which they become entangled and finally drown.
 |
Paul Klee, Fish Magic,1925
|
For the platypus, the encroachment of people entering their immediate remaining habitat seeking to kill freshwater cray/fish for gain or fun is another serious threat. "The platypus (is) getting caught up in fishing lines, being hooked, dragged
in, drowned, or [being caught in] yabby nets". (source) The cheap plastic paraphernalia such as fishing lines and hooks, sinkers and mesh traps
are often carelessly discarded into the waterways by re-creational fishers. Entanglement or ingestion of these artificial substances
entails a slow and painful death for the animal in the wild. Hooks are a common
anthropogenic debris stuck in oral cavities and throats. Some birds
can have up to five fishing hooks attached to their body. (source)
The most cost-effective killing machine for native animals is the opera house-style yabby trap. For a few dollars the fishing gear of a plastic tangle ( "67 x 48 x 30cm with
5cm ring, and the wire diameter is 4.2mm with plastic coating" source) is making a killing for retail stores and on-line providers.
 |
| Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Water, 1566 |
These
contraptions are submerged in the public waterways to catch the main
food the platypus depends on - yabbies. "When a platypus enters them,
they drown within a couple of minutes." (source)
When the fishing enthusiasts return to their baited traps to seize the
catch they usually find a rich bycatch of non-target species of aquatic
mammals, sometimes even four or five platypuses in one net. Even after various air-breathing wildlife have been killed, these traps
can capture and drown other animals ad infinitum, over days, weeks or
years. (source) Should the platypus have offspring, her young will certainly also have to starve to death.
 |
Paul Klee, Fish Magic,1925
|
The British 'right to roam' or 'freedom to roam'
translated in Australia as access to extractive activities by individuals or business entities. The land is a playground where one
might freely take. This 'take culture' is ingrained in the very cultural
fabric and individual mindsets of settler-colonial (neo-) extractivism.
The few no-take zones
in the Great Barrier Reef that are set aside for conservation, are
actively defied."People are intentionally breaking the law and
intentionally going into the [green] zones and fishing; both commercial
and recreational fishers." (source)
 |
| Carl Spitzweg, The Butterfly Hunter, 1849 |
For
many decades millions of these wasteful traps have been used by the public in
wilful ignorance. Each state has different rules, some retailers stopped
sales, but all are still freely available online. Even if they are
illegal in some states, the use of the killing machine continues. ( here, here, here) The many illegal traps only occasionally come to the public attention. Media reports highlight the tip of
the visible iceberg only.: "Half a struggling platypus population killed by illegal yabby pots in Victoria's east." (source)
Unreasonably low penalties, a low presence of environment enforcement officers (that might risk getting shot) and an absence of legislated national environmental standards make for little change in the rate of biodiversity destruction.
A governance refraining from effective regulation, seeks to 'raise
awareness', educate the fishing community that are thought to be unaware
of any rules. Gentle nudging is the norm with the occasional 'crack down on illegal fishing nets'. Cheap public appeals meet low-cost junk and defiance.
Cruelty against animals and specifically Australian wildlife is a daily 'news' item. In a botanical garden three platypuses have been found dumped of which two had their heads cut off. (source) Cruelty to non human animals, specifically wildlife crimes are rarely effectively investigated with outcomes.
 |
Albrecht Dürer, Left Wing of a Blue Roller, 1500
|
Poaching and wildlife trafficking
is just another branch of the extractive industries. Exporting
Australian flora and fauna, such as hundreds of endangered parrots for
example gets the official nod: "Environment department failed to
investigate allegations rare Australian birds were exported for profit."
(source)
While degrading and exporting the nation's biodiversity, Australia has the highest pet ownership rates in the world. (source) Australians desire to surround themselves with introduced species from overseas, such as dogs and cats. Cats have become a runaway invasive species problem. Invasive alien species are now a huge financial burden
for Australia. Endemic life-forms, such as wildlife and local plant
species have to pay with their lives. Pets have a huge industry behind
them.
 |
The
loss of Australian land mammals is most likely due primarily to
predation by introduced species, particularly the feral cat, Felis
catus. (Image: P. Klee)
|
Pet owners wishing to escape the living quarters they have made, seek recreation for themselves and their semi tamed 'best
friend'. They drive to the margins (bush and beach) where local wildlife has found a
momentary refuge. Their roaming carnivorous pets are mostly unsupervised
and off leash. Unrestrained cats wander far afield and kill. Both dogs and cats attack and kill platypuses. Survivors of the 'tragedy of the commons' occasionally hit the news when some of them are being 'stitched up' in the zoo.
When
humans and their pets barge into or near waterways with their
combustion engines it can happen, that the platypus is given a 'joy ride', that is the monotreme is wedged inside the car engine, while the car is driving through the water body to get to their place of recreation.
Dog walkers, joggers, bushwalkers and their car tyres also bring pathogens into the liminal 'edgelands' where wildlife dwells. An ulcerating fungal disease (Mucormycosis) spread by humans has killed a large number of platypuses. (source) Similar deadly skin lesions, equivalent to third-degree burns in endangered
bottlenose dolphins are thought to be due to climate disruption. (source) Emerging 'mystery' infectious dis-eases befall wildlife in a warming world while their surroundings are being deteriorated.
 |
| Paul Klee, The Protector, 1926 |
A multitude of anthropogenic threats is compromising the health
conditions of many species. The loss and or degradation of their home
niche lowers their immunity, causes dis-ease and hence their resilience
for survival is affected negatively. While the diversity of life on the whole is
declining, many species are being made extinct. The platypus is just one of the many beings on the IUCN Red List threatened with extinction.
The
conservation of living species depends primarily on the maintenance of
their habitats. Humans construct treeless deserts where machines can
freely move. Land-use planning and policy making for conservation could be informed by our most advanced system of knowledge and practice - our science.
Science measures, quantifies and records nature. The triumph of instrumental
reason determines whether 'things' out there have usability for us. The
domination and exploitation of the 'stuff out there' has to directly
translate not just into use for us but into monetary gains. The
reduction of systemic complexity by various science faculties, that can
hardly communicate to each other, has calculability and quantification
in mind. Today's cabinets of curiosity are databases of
species and DNA
barcodes. The data or predictive modelling can be utilised for political
decision-making or to pursue legal challenges to save a species from
ecocide.
'Humanity's self-alienation has reached the point where it
can experience its own annihilation as a supreme aesthetic pleasure.' -
Walter Benjamin
Data collection for conservation mainly takes place via radio-tracking of wildlife. The animal is caught and a satellite telemetry transmitter is attached (often glued-on) to its body. All movement and behaviour of animals can then be remotely monitored by GPS sensors. Wildlife can also gather data and do environmental monitoring
about the biosphere for us. Often, animal-mounted sensors with large
antennas impede the conduct of the living creature. Joined to 'the internet of things'
they are locked in a "network of physical objects—"things" or
objects—that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies
for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices
and systems over the internet". (source) Icarus
monitors the globally tagged animal population from space. The internet
of things provides us with a smooth warehouse logistics operation.
Geolocators provide mobility profiles of all living beings carrying
devices.
 |
Paul Klee, Tropical twilight, 1921, detail
|
In times of funding cuts and science denial the scientific community resorts to outsourcing data gathering to lay people. Environmental communities are mobilised via Citizen Science
and Crowdfunding to do the time-consuming outdoor fieldwork that cannot
be automated. Volunteers collect or even classify data. The data is
then synthesised in PhDs, possibly with an eye to ecosystem services the creature could deliver to humanity.
In
an increasingly uninhabitable world for humans and non-human beings,
ex-situ conservation and translocation seem to be the last options for
survival. Even homo sapiens, the 'social animal' has to resort to prolonged collective isolation when they unleash zoonotic pandemics. Zoological menageries become the last rafts for the breeding of animal populations in captivity. As "everywhere chemicals "are destroying sperm counts in humans and other animals, assisted reproductive technology (ART)
is employed to counter this trend. Assisted technology and gene banking
is also used to influence the genetic diversity of animals on the
brink.
Human-assisted evolution
is an intervention to fabricate resilience on a planet rendered
uninhabitable. This technology aims to accelerate the rate of natural
evolutionary processes ( e.g. in reefs). so that the organism's plasticity might keep up with the speed of destruction.
It seems impossible to influence human practices, such as speeding
motorists on autopilot behaviour who are blind to wildlife signage.
Tagging "every koala in the area and a kilometre into the bush" to
activate road warning signs seems to be a more feasible and effective
option for keeping the species alive. (source) It appears that the human exceptionalism paradigm is impossible to shift, even in the light of the life support system of the planet collapsing. The
business as usual button is hit even harder, the more nature is
declining globally "at rates unprecedented in human history." (source) It appears that the "more-than-human-/world" is conceptualised into 'winners and losers' in a game of survival. Wiped out is just bad luck!
 |
| Paul Klee, Ravaged land |
Science
might not only provide a technical conservation 'fix', but is even
implicated in the disappearance of species. Only a few years ago a
university applied for a scientific permit to kill a platypus for
research
purposes claiming it wanted to save the species. (source)
The
quest for knowledge often requires the elimination of the object of
study. The 'discovery' of a species has often entailed its demise. "The
killing of kangaroos by Europeans began at exactly the same time that
the species was first identified. Shooting, naming, describing,
scientifically classifying, sketching, dissecting, eating: these things
all played out simultaneously as soon as Cook’s Endeavour got stranded
on a reef..." (source) Today, in the age of mass extinctions, the Australian marsupial is still called a pest in NSW. (source).
After "the
Endeavour had smashed into a reef at Cooktown and needed repair. The
crew, provisioning for the long trip home, caught “eight or nine” green
turtles ... weighing 200-300 pounds
(90-140 kilograms) apiece. The local people, Guugu Yimidhirr, considered
these animals sacred, never taking enough to jeopardise the breeding.
The invaders had broken the sacred protocols. In particular, they’d
taken too many females...The people, seeing the plunder, were
appalled and asked for one to be returned. When the crew refused, they
showed (says Banks) “great marks of resentment” and left the ship.
Later, on the beach, they ignited the surrounding grasses, endangering
some of Cook’s possessions. The crew retaliated with shotguns, wounding
at least one." (source)
To
see, seize, name and build taxonomies of classifications is to
fill the material or conceptual wunderkammern or warehouses with a
just-in-time readiness for exploitation. From the colonial habitus of
plunder and pillage, to a take - culture, to industrial extractivism,
all are ignoring or bypassing law and ethics. The algorithms of the global warehouse are only further optimising and automating these 'supply chains'. The trajectory of this automaton steers towards a “ghastly future” due to ongoing environmental degradation, violating the planetary boundaries,
biodiversity wipe out, climate disruption, and human overconsumption.
The cracks of this ecological Ponzi scheme become increasingly more
visible while we steal from the future to gain
short term increases to afford us a momentary feeling of normality. (source)
The
proverbial 'bottom line' for the planet or specifically
Australia is atrocious. Under Aboriginal cultures, care for Country was
enabled for more than 65,000 years of human habitation. Rivers flowed
with drinkable water, the land and air were unburdened by liquid or
solid pollution. In an extremely short time period European settlement
unravelled Australia's most distinctive biodiversity. (source) Australia is on the global frontline of the climate emergency, The House is on Fire, the coast and cities drown and the desert
grows. Land clearing rates and the elimination of biodiversity are more
akin to a 'developing country'. "Eastern Australia is now a designated
global deforestation hotspot, alongside places like the Amazon, the
Congo and Borneo."(source) It also " has the worst modern-day mammal extinction record of any country on Earth." (source)
 |
Klee, Mess of fish,1940
|
A “
frenetic appetite for territory",
exploitation of Country for a quick profit and passionate reality
denial make this degradation possible. On the interhuman relationship
Australia appears "violent, racist and in denial". (
source) The landscape of Australia "is still a contested space: the site of ongoing Indigenous dispossession" (
source)
A sense of un-belonging, a state of being cut off and apart from the
environment – of wishing to tame and exploit nature prevails. In
An Imaginary Life one can envisage how to relate to the environment and to those who are different to oneself in new ways. Opening up to
traditional ecological knowledge
systems that see humans as an integral part of the whole, might be one
way to slow the demise. Of the entire terrestrial surface only 2.8% is
still
ecologically intact. "Many of the areas identified as ecologically
intact
coincide with territories managed by indigenous communities." (
source)
Slowing down or even refraining from the huge human impact, ensuring
ecological literacy and structural global change could be a starting
point to make the platypus live, save its ecotope and the planet with its
biodiversity. #GenerationRestoration is already putting hands
and heads to work to ensure a future for people, biodiversity and the planet.
Serena Melody, Williams Geoff A. (2021) Factors affecting the frequency and outcome of platypus entanglement by human rubbish. Australian Mammalogy
Woinarski, J. C. Z.,
Burbidge, A. A., and Harrison, P. L. (2015). Ongoing unraveling of a continental fauna: decline and extinction of australian mammals since European settlement. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 112, 4531–4540. doi:
10.1073/pnas.1417301112
Hawke T; Bino G; Kingsford RT, 2020, 'Platypus: Paucities and peril. A response to: Limitations on the use of historical and database sources to identify changes in distribution and abundance of the platypus', Global Ecology and Conservation, vol. 21, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00857
2020
The Australian Platypus Monitoring Network (APMN) ).People Assisting Platypus Conservation
Hilda
Kean: „However, the experiences of those without a voice – animals and
certain humans – have been marked in the landscape, in the material
culture of the past. (pdf)
Images:
Lovis Corinth, In the Woods near Bernried, 1892
John Lewin, Platypus, 1808
Gould John Duckbilled Platypus (1845-1863)
Franz Marc, The Yellow Cow, 1911
Taylor, Thomas Griffith & Beckit, H. O. (192-?]). The new Oxford wall maps of Australia
Ferdinand Hodler, Woodcutter, 1910
Franz Marc , Three Animals (Dog, Fox and Cat), 1912
Sarah Stone, Interior of the Leverian Museum, watercolor by Library of New South Wales, 1770s
Natural History Museum, Berlin, The glass-walled Wet Collection Wing
with 12.6 km of shelf space displays one million specimens preserved in
an ethanol solution and held in 276,000 jars (2 pictures)
Stuffed Birds, Natural History Museum, Berlin
Bitumen and lawn, Coffs Harbour, NSW suburbia
Otto Dix, A Nocturnal Encounter with an Insane Man, 1924
Heinrich Harder, Duck billed platypus, 1916
Ferdinand Hodler, Mountain stream near Champéry, 1916, detail
Albrecht Dürer, Left Wing of a Blue Roller (c.1500)
Carl Spitzweg The Butterfly Hunter, 1849
Franz Marc, Long Yellow Horse, 1913
Paul Klee, Fish Magic, 1925, detail
Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Water, 1566
Paul Klee, Fish Magic, 1925
Paul Klee, Cat and Bird, 1928
Paul Klee, The Protector, 1926, detail
Paul Klee, Tropical twilight, 1921, detail
Paul Klee, Ravaged land, 1921
Paul Klee, Mess of fish, 1940
