A not-for-profit company is hoping to recruit volunteers and raise money to fund the project designed to find out how prevalent the elusive mammal is in our streams.
There have been sporadic reports of the monotremes in the lower Goulburn, but they appear to be more common in the upper reaches.
The project will use the technology that has been useful in finding fragments of COVID-19 in wastewater in urban sewerage plants.
Congupna farmer Helen Reynolds was out jogging along the Goulburn River when she looked down and saw a platypus swimming about looking for food.
She was on an early morning run in Shepparton about a year ago, when she took a break and noticed the furred mammal swimming on the surface of the river, not far from where the Broken joins the Goulburn.
“It was magic, really,” Ms Reynolds recalled.
Ms Reynolds is chair of the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority, and said the CMA's work was helping create a healthy environment for species like the platypus.
But the mammal's status has changed to being a threatened species and is now listed as vulnerable in Victoria.
Bunbartha conservationist John Pettigrew said one of the threats to platypus habitat was unseasonal high rivers in the Goulburn, which could interfere with their burrows.
He has never forgotten an experience on the Goulburn River near a former weir, when representatives of the CMA visited the river bank about 10 years ago.
As if on cue, a platypus appeared and swam around the river, apparently unconcerned at the nearby gathering which included a minister of the crown.
Kialla Lakes resident Morae Parker witnessed a platypus in the Broken River off Broken River Dve, an urban area of Shepparton, about two or three years ago.
She is a Water Watch volunteer who regularly collects water samples so she takes an interest in the wildlife.
“They are about, but they can be hard to see because they might surface for only a moment and then dive again.”
Platypus ecologist Josh Griffiths said there were sporadic reports of platypus in the Goulburn River historically, but in the past 10 years there had been very few official sightings.
“The sightings tend to be reported where people gather, but the question is: are there some there but not being seen?,” he said.
“Very few regions have had a systematic survey conducted.”
Mr Griffiths said while platypus may tend to be shy, they may not be seen because of their natural behaviours.
They are mostly active at night and are difficult to see because they spend a large part of their time under water.
“I don't think they are as shy as some people think.”
The Victorian Government has announced it will provide an initial cash injection of $250,000 towards restoration works at key habitat sites while a further $50,000 will be used to develop a long-term plan to ensure the future of the mammal.
This follows the government’s approval of a Scientific Advisory Council recommendation to formally list the platypus population in Victoria as vulnerable.
Environmental not-for-profit Odonata, in partnership with wildlife detection and monitoring service EnviroDNA and Outback Academy Australia, have proposed a project to map the entire distribution of platypuses throughout Victoria’s waterways to inform future management solutions to reverse the decline of populations throughout the state.
For many species in freshwater ecosystems, this data has previously been too difficult and costly to collect at a landscape level, which greatly impedes the ability to prioritise and implement management actions to reverse declines and prevent further extinctions.
Outback Academy Australia business development manager Neville Atkinson, from Shepparton, said platypuses were culturally, spiritually and environmentally significant to indigenous people.
“It's imperative this type of research happens now,” he said.
Odonata and EnviroDNA are calling on Victorians to not only donate to the project but to sign up as a potential volunteer by visiting its website.
The majority of funding will go towards providing more than 2000 free testing kits to be sent to citizen scientists, and the analysis of all samples for the presence of platypus DNA.
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