Equity In Every Drop: Series Four, Episode Three

In this episode of Equity in Every Drop, host Thomas Hynes speaks with Dr. Michelle Ryan, senior lecturer in ecology and environmental science at Western Sydney University and the Hawkesbury Nepean Waterkeeper. Dr. Ryan shares her journey from an early fascination with freshwater turtles to her current focus on the ecological health of freshwater systems and the part the iconic platypus plays in this endeavor. She discusses the innovative use of environmental DNA to confirm platypus presence in urbanizing areas, the significant impacts of urban development on platypus habitats, and effective measures to mitigate these impacts. Additionally, Dr. Ryan highlights the resilience of the platypus and the importance of community and governmental collaboration in preserving waterway health. Join them as they explore the challenges and triumphs of protecting this enigmatic and fascinating species.

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Transcript – Series 4, Episode 3: Consider the Platypus

 

[00:00:00] Thomas Hynes: My guest today is Dr. Michelle Ryan. Michelle is a senior lecturer in ecology and environmental science at Western Sydney University and the current Hawkesbury Nepean Waterkeeper. Michelle’s research includes human impacts on aquatic environments with a focus on the ecological health of freshwater systems and aquatic animals.

Her current research focuses on the iconic platypus and the health of platypus populations in the greater Sydney region. Platypus are technically mammals, but in many ways seem unclassifiable. At least to me. They resemble a cross between a duck, a beaver, and a river otter. They are the only mammal to lay eggs.

They hunt blindly in the dark and live exclusively in Eastern Australia. Dr. Ryan, thank you so much for being here to discuss this fascinating little critter with me and your work. 

Dr. Michelle Ryan: Thanks Tom. I’m really excited to be here. 

Thomas Hynes: So we talked before this, I have a 4-year-old. We talk about animals all the time.

And the platypus is sort of the one where I’m like, yeah, that’s just, they’re not like the other ones. They lay eggs, they have a duck bill, but yes, [00:01:00] everything else kind of follows these like, interesting taxonomy. So, we’ll get into the platypus, but I want to take a step back and uh, tell me about your work as a lecturer and how you came to be the Hawkesbury Nepean Waterkeeper. And what inspired you just to get involved in this line of study and in this line of work in general. 

Dr. Michelle Ryan: I started my undergraduate degree was environmental management, so I was always really interested in the environment and caring for the environment. And as a kid growing up, I always loved animals, but I had a particular love. It’s maybe a bit strange. I’m here talking about platypus and I’m about to say I had a particular love for freshwater turtles. So, my grandparents growing up had pet turtles as many many of our grandparents did, they were quite a popular pet in Australia in the eighties and nineties.

So I grew up around turtles. There’s heaps of photos of me as like a two and three and 4-year-old holding these turtles that my grandparents had as pets. So I kind of always had that interest in them. And then did my undergraduate [00:02:00] degree, did my honors on 

freshwater turtles, did my PHD on freshwater turtles. And then got my role as a lecturer at university which was really exciting. And really became kind of obsessed with aquatic species and especially those really cool species like fish and turtles. We at Western Sydney University and we had a Waterkeepers Alliance that was formed in 2011.

So before my time working there that had a PhD student who kind of ran it and when he left, it kind of fell away a bit. We started working with a whole variety of different organizations, community groups, and government organizations, and we realize that we are all doing this work on the river.

None of it’s coordinated why we talk to each other. We’re really not coming together to form objectives and goals together, even though we wanted the same outcomes. So we reinvigorated the [00:03:00] Waterkeeper Alliance in 2020, and from there it’s just blossomed and grown. And how I really started working on the platypus and getting into that space was community driven. We had a organization Kitaigh Hills Environment Network, which is a community organization part of the Waterkeepers Alliance, and they were really concerned about the development in their area we’re based here in Western Sydney. Which is an area that’s seeing a huge expanse of urbanization.

We are having what we call a wall of development coming towards the river, and they’re looking at, in the next five years, we’re gonna have a million more people in our Hawkesbury Nepean catchment, which is a huge amount of development. And with that, we’re starting to see huge amounts of land clearing.

We’re seeing a new airport going in huge industrial areas being developed, and [00:04:00] community group and a member of our alliance was really concerned because they were being told that they had platypus in their area and they really were concerned because the government and the local council at the time didn’t consider they had platypus.

The last record of platypus in the area was 1998. So they basically thought we didn’t have platypus, so they didn’t need to consider that in development applications. They didn’t have to really think about , that with waterway health. But the community group knew they had them.

They had fishermen telling them that they were seeing platypus. They had landholders who have houses along the creeks telling them that they had platypus. So they said what can we do? How can we show that we have platypus? And we did some research and found that we could use environmental DNA to determine if we had platypus in the area. We know that.

Thomas Hynes: What does, wait, now what does that mean? What does that mean? [00:05:00] So I mean, I’m fascinated by this story, and I just wanted to say, because I love the idea that you’re like, no, we can just build, there’s no platypus everyth. Like, no, we have them, but now you’re using this. Okay, go on.

Because I’m, I wanna know more about that. 

Dr. Michelle Ryan: Yeah. So I mean, the community really wanted evidence. So, they weren’t getting listened to. They needed scientific evidence that there were platypus there. So, we looked and there was this new innovative technique at the time that would look at DNA in water.

So essentially community members it’s a very simple method. We’d go and take water samples, we’d filter them on site and send them to a lab. Now we know from those like CSI shows that when, that’s where I was thinking Yeah. We anywhere, yeah. We’re constantly leaving traces of ourselves. We scratch.

Skin cells fall off, hair falls off. We’re leaving tracers everywhere. And the platypus are the same as they’re moving through the water. They’re scratching, they’re rubbing their bills, they’re urinating they’re leaving traces of themselves. And we can take [00:06:00] a water sample, a small amount of water, 500 mils, filter it, send it to the lab, and then the lab can tell us if there was platypus, within a kilometer upstream in the last 24 hours, which was really amazing. So we had, is amazing. We had about 32 community members all had different sites. I did a training day with them on how to take the samples. They went out and collected came back and half of our sites had platypus. So, we ended up with 18 out of 36 sites had Platypus present, which was amazing. It’s a small creek. The creek system was Cat Eye Creek. And it’s about 40, 50 kilometers long. And yeah, huge number. That kind of blew our mind. We thought we might get one or two. But it really seemed that creek of our main Hawkesbury Nepean River.

And the small little Tributaries that came off, it had platypus. So it was really exciting. And then that kind of just like exploded my [00:07:00] work into platypus more, and that’s what I spend the majority of my time doing now, which is great.

Thomas Hynes: Well, I just, I love there’s a lot that I love about that. One is the existence of the platypus. That they were there, that people were wrong. Yeah. Or the people were right and the authorities were wrong. I love that time. Yes. I love using science to prove it. And it’s just, that’s such a, that’s such a great story. And , I forgot to mention in my intro, one of my favorite things to talk about with animals is their collective noun.

’cause those are really fun, like just flourishes of language. and the collective noun. A group of platypus is called a puddle of platypus, which is just very, very lovely. Anyway so, what kind of field work? We were in touch for a couple weeks before this, and you were like, I’m out every night studying platypus.

I, I, and I’ve watched some videos in doing some research about you, and I see you in all these beautiful places that look very far away and exotic from where I am in New York. Tell me about the, in the field work that you do studying the river and I guess the platypus as an indicator of the river’s health or the [00:08:00] waterways health.

Dr. Michelle Ryan: Yeah, so we do well I guess we do day field work and night field work. So our day field work is all about water quality, our water bugs all of that kind of sampling to get kind of river health and the chemistry and all of that. And then the more exciting work is our night field work. So platypus are a very elusive species.

Very hard to spot and they nest in burrows during the day or rest in Burrows during the day and come out at Sunset. Usually forage around as you said, they close their eyes underwater. They forage around using those electric receptors in their bill for about 12 hours and then come back in at sunrise.

So that means that we become nocturnal for almost half of the year. And at the moment we go out about three or four times a week. We’re looking to capture a net platypus. So what that entails is, we usually go and pack our gear about 3:00 PM we go to a site. And we [00:09:00] set net. So we net all throughout Sydney.

So we have quite a wide area in Sydney and a variety of waterways. Some quite big and large, some quite small that we can walk into. Some, we use a little boat for. We set a 25 meter mesh net, which people know as a gill net. So it’s a, a net that drops about two meters unweighted in the water.

Platypus close their eyes as they forage, and essentially we hope that they just swim into the net and it’s been designed. So when they swim in they get caught, they come up. And they make a funny kind of whooshing sound and we quickly paddle out to them collect them and pop them in a pillowcase.

We then bring them to land. We measure them, we weigh them, we check them for entanglements. One other thing we do which we haven’t mentioned yet is we check for spurs. So male platypus have venomous [00:10:00] spurs on their back hind legs. It’s apparently the most painful thing you can experience if you get spurred.

Many people have reported months of pain.

Thomas Hynes: Oh my, my gosh.

Dr. Michelle Ryan: of being spuurred and even people who are rescuing platypus. So there was a lady down south in Tasmania who found one on the road and picked him up. And he spurred her and she was in immense pain and there’s no pain relief. So morphine, all of that will not relieve your pain. You just kind of have to sit it out. So yeah they’re quite a dangerous, they’re one of our most dangerous creatures in Australia, it won’t kill us, but a huge amount of pain. So we check for Spurs, obviously as soon as we start handling them. And all platypus we consider male until two of us have verified there’s no spurs. So we check their spurs and we take a little fur sample. We look for contaminants. And I currently have a student who’s tracking them.

So we’re looking at where they move [00:11:00] throughout our Hawkesbury-Nepean systems. And that will help Tell us how important individual properties are, it’ll give us information on the home range of platypus because no one’s done that research here in Sydney. So in this kind of urbanized, peri-Urban Fringe

we really don’t know much about our platypus population yet, so we are trying to learn as much as we can. And this will help tell us Yeah, the home range, how they’re moving. I’ve got a student doing the genetics, so how connected the population is. So we’re trying to learn as much as we can from them.

And then we release the platypus back. We have them for about 20 minutes and then pop them back in the waterway and watch ’em swim off. And hopefully some of those videos you watched are those of us releasing platypus? Yes, because they’re amazing videos, seeing them waddling back into the creek.

Thomas Hynes: And then again, there’s just so, like there, there’re the most, I mean, I think of also I’m, I haven’t had the pleasure and privilege to be in Australia yet, but you think about it from here and you’re like, man, there’s like a lot of animals that can kill [00:12:00] you. That’s kind of Yes. The vibe that I have.

Yes. And I understand that the the platypus can’t kill people or hasn’t, it hasn’t been recorded, but gosh, that sounds terrible. And I don’t, and again, like like mammals aren’t usually venomous, like this is my whole thing is that they kind of, it’s weird Defy classification and. They don’t have stomachs, right?

So they have to eat for like 12 hours, or like, they just have to eat like 30% of their weight. I mean, I, again, so you clearly, I saw a bunch of YouTubes on this, but yeah,

Dr. Michelle Ryan: they do have stomachs. It’s a it’s a common misconception that they don’t have stomachs. They do have the stomach, okay, but they have to eat 25 to 50% of their body weight a night.

And so they weigh, our females weigh about a kilo, just under a kilo. Our males weigh about a kilo and a half, so they have to, you know

250 to 500 grams of bugs a night. And we’re not talking like big bugs. We’re talking like little tiny bug larvae. So those really small water bugs that you see, wriggling around in ponds, those little [00:13:00] water striders.

All of those kind of little, like little shrimp. We have lots of glass shrimp here that they eat. It’s really a lot. And when we do our testing on sites, we have to get a gram of weight and it takes us a long time with a big net to get a gram. So the platypus really spend hours and hours foraging and it’s gonna be really interesting to see here

how far they have to travel to forage. So we know in like really nice pristine areas, their home ranges are actually quite small. It’s about a kilometer because there’s heats of those water bugs here in Western Sydney. We suffer a lot of pressures on our waterway. And with that comes a reduction in water bugs.

So. It’s gonna be interesting to see what our population movements like compared to some of those more pristine areas.

Thomas Hynes: This is, I mean, this is so interesting to me and I I don’t want to like focus too much about how neat [00:14:00] the platypus is and wanna talk more about the work of it, but I could, I don’t want to get, I don’t want to get us too off topic here. So I want to talk about, sort of the pressures, lack of a better term, the pressures of urbanization on these habitats.

Yep. ’cause this is something that I find very interesting as we discussed before, and I just think it’s, and I think it’s interesting because urbanization isn’t only happening where I sit and where you sit. Yeah. Where our species has a huge impact on wildlife. Wildlife is incredibly resilient. But that you know that I we were saying it’s like an intersection of urbanization and wildlife. I like to say it’s almost like a collision. It’s, it’s like, it’s not really that great when we are impact. Tell me what’s happening as you understand it with the platypus populations and the, this increased and forecasted to be further increased urbanization.

Yeah. In your area. 

Dr. Michelle Ryan: Yeah, I think the first thing that we really discovered is that the platypus are possibly more resilient than we believe. We have them in some areas [00:15:00] of really high urbanization, like I’m talking, units surrounding their areas. It’s been really surprising where we’ve been finding platypus in saying that we have low numbers of platypus it appears to other areas and other populations. We have only been trapping platypus for three years. So we can’t really definitively say the population status yet because we haven’t been going long enough. We’ve had the Platypus Conservancy in Melbourne, they’ve been going for 30 years now, so they kind of have a really good picture of their populations and how it’s changed over time.

 We know in Sydney and Western Sydney we’ve had platypus for tens of thousands of years. Traditional owners have talked to us about some stories from their ancestors and about platypus, so we know that they’ve always been here. But we’ve been really surprised where they are and they’re facing a huge amount of pressure, and one of the [00:16:00] biggest pressures is that development urbanization, and it’s the pressure it’s placing on the waterway is through erosion and sedimentation.

So we’re getting huge amounts of dirt moved around Sydney dirt trucked in, dirt trucked out, dirt dug up. And that really we’re seeing huge amounts of that ending up in our waterways. And what that does is just completely smothers any of that habitat for all those water bugs that platypus live on.

So we’re seeing that as a huge impact. The second impact we’re seeing is from losing those riparian zones, so those vegetated areas around the creeks and rivers. We are going to sites that we know we’ve had platypus at, and we’re seeing bulldozers right in those urbanized sites and those trees and shrubs in that vegetated area is really important.

Platypus have earthy burrows that they go to during the day. [00:17:00] That’s also where they nest and how they have their puggles in, which is a really cute term for a baby platypus. So they need those root structures to hold that bank together. We also, are seeing this, increase in urban heat island in Western Sydney, and it’s very well studied and documented in Western Sydney that these outer suburbs where we have platypus are actually our hottest areas in Sydney.

But those big tall trees and shrubs help keep the heat out a little bit. It’s a bit of a blue green refuge. So when we’re losing that, we’re getting hotter waterways. And as we have said many times, platypus are the weirdest creatures on earth, and they’re also mammals, but they’re not at a normal temperature.

They’re at 32 degrees, so they actually get really hot quite quickly. So we need to make sure that our waterways are stable for them, not just in food source, but in temperature. So when we start losing, the ability of them to burrow and the [00:18:00] water gets a bit hotter, they just start moving. The Hawks Spring, Nepean River is the backbone of the platypus population.

So we have all these sub catchments I’ve talked about Cattai Creek. We have, Yarramundi we have Mulgoa Creek. And so the platypus can move to those different kind of catchment, sub catchment areas if they need to, they can just go up the Hawkesbury-Nepean River. So it’s really our work as Waterkeepers is to really educate the public about those impacts that they’re having, that development’s having that the things that they can do to help platypus.

But we also work so much with local councils local government industry about what they can do and things that they can do as part of their development and things they can put in to help reduce sedimentation. And we give lots of advice to try and help mitigate those impacts because we know that if we have healthy waterways, we can have platypus and we do [00:19:00] have platypus, but we need to really fight to keep them here and to allow them to sustain their populations.

Thomas Hynes: Yeah, I mean, that’s sort of my next question is like, what can be done about this? And what I love what you said earlier too, that , and this has been my experience is that wildlife is pretty resilient, and it’s just like managing our impacts. . But is there anything else that can be done that you would like listeners to know to, that can help these populations? Or is there, is it like a building code thing? I mean, ’cause it’s, I mean.

Because my feeling is like, we’re gonna continue to grow as a species. We’re gonna continue to need homes, we’re gonna need roads and utilities and things like that. But how do we keep that balanced, I guess. 

Dr. Michelle Ryan: Yeah and we completely understand that we need development in Western Sydney. We need houses to house people.

We need places to go especially out in the west here because, we don’t want people traveling over an hour to work. So , we understand developments happening, but there’s such simple things that developers can put into place or local councils can [00:20:00] put as regulations on. And we work a lot to get that happening, and we’re starting to see those on ground

policy implementations now, which is really great. So, things like putting in biofiltration in new developments or putting in wetlands before storm water goes into creeks, keeping those riparian zones is really important. And I think for communities, a lot of our community education is around just teaching people or showing people that we have platypus there, but everything you do on land has an impact

on the platypus population in western Sydney. So you might be, three kilometers from a creek in the middle of suburbia, but that stormwater drain out the front of your house goes directly to a creek that has a platypus in it. So you really need to think about what you put down that drain. And it’s like, it’s just really simple messaging, like not washing your car on the street so you detergent go straight down there.

One thing that really impacts [00:21:00] platypus is litter entanglement. So we do lots and lots of litter campaigns. Hair ties are a really big killer of platypus or really cause a lot of injury ’cause it’s the right size to fit around the platypus. Ah, right. And they can’t get it off so they become entangled and they can drown or they can become strangled from it.

So we do lots of, especially when we talk with schools, about snipping, loopy, litter thinking about kind of all those things and fishing line is a huge killer. Lots of people here in Western Sydney love fishing. We have some awesome fish species who have lots of mullet and bass and the Hawks River has some really nice big catfish in it.

Really beautiful. But with that comes people leaving fishing rubbish. So, fishing line causes a lot of deaths and unfortunately we’ve had five platypus from our area found deceased. And the majority of those have been from fishing line, which is really upsetting. Ah, that is upsetting. It’s such a [00:22:00] preventable death.

Yeah. So the local councils have started to put in tangler bins. So these little bins that say that they’re for fishing line pop your fishing line in here. So we’ve got those up. We’re doing some signage around. So there’s lots of little things we can do, but it’s really just getting people thinking about, even if they’re not on a waterway, they’re still having an impact on waterway, or that herbicide and pesticide they spray around their house.

All of that is connected, so some people don’t even put that connection together. So I feel like it’s our job as waterkeepers to really bring that to people that, we’re all connected. It’s all one system, and we could all look after each other. 

Thomas Hynes: That’s so true. And that’s so great.

And one of the things that I have always thought about with these species with urban wildlife or, you know suburb and wildlife or whatever, is that when you protect the platypus in this case, what’s good for the platypus is ultimately good for people too. Like we all want clean rivers, right?

Like we all want like healthy riparian zones. [00:23:00] And one of the things I was, I, when I was listening to you, I was thinking. And I don’t wanna fall into this trap, and I’m sure you have not fallen into this trap, but it’s like easy to be like, well, I wanna like save the charismatic megafauna. Yeah.

And, but I wonder, is it easier or does it help your work that you have this charismatic little critter, this like alien, most fascinating animal on planet. Rather than be like hey, save. Say don’t use herbicides and don’t wash your car. ’cause there’s these tiny little gnats in the water that you can’t see.

Yeah. But does that help your, I hate to say this because it almost like your public relations. Yeah. 

Dr. Michelle Ryan: Yeah. And I’m gonna say that’s is my success, is the fact that I have platypus behind me and I have the most amazing creature in the world here. And that’s our icon for Waterway Health, and that’s our way of , connecting people to our waterways and getting governments and industry and communities on board to protect this amazing species.

It’s like [00:24:00] how many people can say that they have a platypus in their backyard, here in Western Sydney we do, and it’s amazing. So it’s really our success is because of platypus. And it’s just great that we have them. Protecting the platypus protects all the waterway species. What’s good for the platypus is good for bass. It’s good for mullet, it’s good for eels, it’s good for all those water bugs. It’s good for all those tiny zooplankton, and it’s good for our human health and yeah. Not just our drinking water, which a lot of our drinking water comes from the Hawkesbury–Nepean here in Sydney.

But also having recreational space, people being able to access the river, go boating, going swimming, going kayaking. Mentally it’s amazing having these healthy waterways around us that we have somewhere to go. We have somewhere to relax and we have somewhere to connect with. 

Thomas Hynes: I completely agree. Now, right now you’re at this week I’m [00:25:00] catching you at the regional summit for Australian Water Keepers and or in Oceanic region, I guess at large. Yep. And I’ve met a few, I’ve now met you. I’ve met the Richmond River keeper. I’ve met the. I don’t know if John is still the Werribee river keeper but I’ve met a few of you.

So how has it been reconvening or getting together this week in Sydney? 

Dr. Michelle Ryan: Yeah, it’s amazing. It’s like a family coming together. You know, 

We are working together on this amazing cause and we all feel the same and why we’re placed throughout Australia we actually are all really having the same impacts on our waterways, facing the same issues doing amazing work.

It’s amazing some of the work that the other water keepers are doing, and we’ve been able to share that with each other. Share resources. Really troubleshoot. But I think the best thing is just really getting to know each other. So we’ve really been able to, you know, 

we just have all these chats. We go to dinner together and we have been able to just have all of these [00:26:00] conversations just to build this network of support.

So, you know, I really feel like we can just pick up the phone and say, Hey, I’ve had this in my area. I remember you talked about this issue. How did you deal with it? What resources do you have? How do you suggest I go about this? So it’s amazing having, with all these, this is our first Oceanic Summit, so it’s the first time we’ve all come together.

We zoom we meet by Zoom, but we’ve all come together and it’s just been amazing spending the last few days together. And tomorrow we’re out on the river. Everyone’s gonna get out in canoes and I’m gonna show them some of our platypus sites. We’re gonna do a little cleanup. We’ve got a little flotilla, so we’ve got a whole bunch of kayaks people are gonna go out on and they’re gonna be able to get on country and have a look at our waterway, which I’m really excited to show them.

Thomas Hynes: Oh, that’s so exciting. And I, and it’s so, I mean, it’s great to, like, we’re meeting virtually right now and that’s great and I feel like I have a connection with you, but there nothing beats being in person with people. No. Or being face to face with people. And that next step that you talk about is very real.

You’re like, [00:27:00] Hey, I heard you talking about this. Hey, we had dinner together. Hey, remember we were paddling together and what that opens up is so incredible. Well, I wanna say thank you for being here. We are working across not just our two time zones, but our third time zone with our intrepid producer, who is in the background and makes all this happen.

Thank you, Sarah. And, . I know it’s late at night there, and I appreciate you being here, and I just appreciate all the work that you do. And I just personally found it really fascinating to speak to you.

And, and, my fascination with the platypus only grows. So, thank you so much for taking the time out of your evening to be here with us.

Dr. Michelle Ryan: So I just wanna thank you for having me and you are more than welcome anytime you’re in Australia to come out platypusing with us and hopefully see a platypus. 

Thomas Hynes: I would love that. And I know a certain 4-year-old in my life who would love that too, so

Dr. Michelle Ryan: For sure.

Thomas Hynes: Thank you, Dr. Ryan. 

Dr. Michelle Ryan: Thank you.