Friends of Sturt Gorge Newsletter No 37 : July 2017 This edition: Snakes, Platypuses, Sturt Dam Crossing, Themeda grass, Weather…. was still there and you have got the Snakes Alive! resulting photo. I then left it to enjoy the sunshine. I was a little amazed, having Rick Coyte, Peter Szell, worked in that area for 4 years and never Andrew Watson, sighted a snake”. uring the latter weeks of summer D one of the regular workers in the southern part of the Gorge - Peter Szell - contacted Rick Coyte to say that he'd spotted a large brown snake while working and that he'd been able to get a picture of it. Apparently Peter nearly stepped on the snake, and before he could think about it, had made a reflex jump to avoid it. His story; Peter Szell’s brown snake “I saw the snake twice, on the way back to my car after my working bee I stopped At a similar time Andrew Watson also had a snake encounter; to look at one of my past work of “While working on the Blackwood South removing a thicket of dense olive bushes Bush for Life site a couple of months ago and found that it was used by foxes in (not strictly FOSG work but closely the past and had 5 or 6 entry holes which related), I knelt down to pull some I filled and blocked at the time. After I boneseed, heard a movement, looked to had stopped I looked down to my my left and found I was within a metre amazement there was the snake curled of a two metre long black snake. The up sunning itself. I took some photos morning shadows had disguised him using my phone. I must have disturbed it well! He wasn’t going anywhere, but I and it uncoiled and wriggled off. It was did – quickly to my right! I took a couple close to 6 feet long. The following week of photos which should complement it was there again so I went to my car Peter Szell’s brown snake photo nicely”. and took my camera and went back it There was some conjecture that what he had seen might have been a native Water Rat or a tortoise. Despite this Mark expressed the view that he really had seen a platypus. In an email to President Amy Blaylock he wrote: “According to Cath Kemper (curator of mammals at the SA Museum) it is likely either a) a mistake or b) an escapee from Warrawong sanctuary. Apparently they are formally regarded as extinct in SA. Even the ones on KI were introduced. I still reckon I know what I saw, but it will probably require verification before it goes any further.” Andrew Watson’s black snake On the 8th Feb, in an attempt to obtain Platypus Sightings in this verification, Donna Ferschl (DEWNR Park Ranger), Luke Price Sturt River (Fauna Ecologist DEWNR), a trainee Rick Coyte ranger, and Rick Coyte (FOSG) went down to the Sturt River to the location of he official view is that the platypus Mark’s sighting to look for the platypus T is extinct in the wild in South or a tortoise or whatever might be there. Australia, but despite this there have There was an unusual amount of water been several sightings reported in the going down the creek for the time of Sturt River this year. The first was by year, and the relevant pool was deep and Mark Parnell (Parliamentary Leader, SA dark. Nothing of note was seen, apart Greens) while bushwalking on 5th from a number of Eastern Water Skinks, February. In an email to Friends of Sturt but in a likely spot on one bank Luke set Gorge he wrote: up an infrared-activated camera to “Whilst out exploring the River Trail automatically photograph any critter that yesterday morning, I came across a might pass under it. The camera was left there for a week or so, and photographed platypus! Never having seen one in the Water Rats and a few introduced Black wild in SA before, I got quite excited… I Rats, but sadly no platypus. now understand that it may have been However, several months later, on 12th more significant than I realised. I figured April there was a second sighting. Again that they were rare, but my sighting it was in the Sturt River, but at quite a seems to have got people quite excited.” different location. This time it was Les Gray, one of our own members, who 2 made the sighting whilst doing some trail years ago for a bloke at Willunga Hill for work. His email to a fellow member a private wildlife park but don’t know reads: what ever happened to them (they didn’t "I stopped [work] for a drink at 10.10am go back to KI). He became seriously ill today and was aware of a lot of and the project was cancelled soon movement and rustling in the fronds after.” (According to John Wamsley the that hang in the water of that large palm pond in which those animals were placed tree diagonally opposite the large fallen was unsuitable, and animals didn’t last gum. I thought a duck must have more than a few weeks). become entangled and kept watching Les’s past experience with platypuses and then about 15 seconds later a large makes him a well-qualified witness, so platypus came slowly swimming across his sighting adds weight and credibility on the surface to my side of the pool near to the first reported sighting by Mark the gum from the palm and then went Parnell in February. Several of us have under the overhanging blackberries on subsequently checked the location, and it my side! I was amazed!!!. It was is true that, as Les said, he would have been very close, with a clear view. definitely a platypus and a large adult As for where the platypuses came from, specimen, the water was shallow and apart from Kangaroo Island the only clear and I was able to observe it for other place in South Australia where they about 20 seconds. I then watched and are known to have been successfully waited for around 10 mins but it did not reintroduced is Warrawong Sanctuary re-appear. I have seen platypus before in (now defunct) where they are known to the wild and this was definitely one and have been breeding, and probably are not a mutant water rat - I had a very still doing so. John Wamsley, founder clear unobstructed close view of it. Send and former owner of Warrawong this on to whoever you may think is Sanctuary, said that three to four young interested. I don’t care if they think I platypuses leave Warrawong each year. must have been on the turps, I know Platypuses tend to be solitary and what I saw. There’s at least one platypus territorial, and once a platypus has in Sturt River!" established itself in a pool or section of a river it will drive out any others that Wondering later how a platypus got into attempt to enter. Once progeny are able Sturt River, Les wrote: to fend for themselves, they too are "The only official introduction to SA was driven out and must find a pool of their in Rocky River on KI in the 1920s. I own. Although a fox, dog, and cat-proof fence encloses Warrawong, John says worked in the research section of the that young platypuses can fit through the Fisheries Department for 28 years and mesh. Apparently on Kangaroo Island, in was involved in collecting a couple from their search for new habitat young KI using fine mesh gill nets about 30+ platypuses have been found up to twelve 3 kilometres from water. Foxes like to eat high degree of human involvement. So it platypuses, so the loss rate at this time has been suggested that someone may may be fairly high. However at least have poached platypuses from Kangaroo some platypuses must have reached and Island, and later released them into the occupied pools, dams and creeks near Sturt River. But although that is a Warrawong. That means that platypuses possibility, given what we know about escaping Warrawong in subsequent years platypus behaviour as discussed above, would have had to look further afield, and their presence and behaviour at and so on in each following year. Warrawong, it seems more likely that Warrawong is in the Onkaparinga any platypus in Sturt River originated catchment, which is divided from the from there. Sturt River catchment by Longwood Road ridge. For a platypus to get to the upper reaches of a creek that feeds into the Sturt River, it would have to get from Warrawong to Heathfield, up slope and across the Longwood Road ridge, and down the other side, a distance of about five kilometres. This distance is well within their capabilities. But would platypuses climb uphill, and cross Longwood Road? According to Les’s research platypuses have been known to leave a stream and move overland around substantial waterfalls, which means John Wamsley’s article on platypuses in the ‘Weekender Herald’ negotiating significant slopes. Les adds that: Because Warrawong is in the “Platypuses are often killed while Onkaparinga catchment, if a platypus crossing roads in Tasmania. In fact there escaped Warrawong it would seem more are roadside platypus-crossing warning likely for it to find Aldgate Creek, Leslie signs in that state, and I’ve had one Creek, or even the upper reaches of Scott scamper across the road in front of me Creek, all of which are much closer than while driving near Strahan on the west Sturt Creek.