CHAPTER XII. Preservation and Economics

PRESERVATION AND ECONOMICS

1--PRESERVATION

So long ago as 1819, Barron Field published the despondent couplet--

“When sooty swans are once more rare, And duck-moles the Museum’s care.”

Since his day Cassandras have not been wanting. Spicer (1876, p. 166) writes from Tasmania:--

“This is all I have been able to bring together anent Platypus and his spur, and little enough it is. I dare say when Australia is more settled, and Ornithorhynchus has been improved off the face of the earth, biologists will have leisure and thought to bestir themselves to enquire into the matter. Just as now we are searching for Dodo’s bones, and writing books about them, and doing work which ought to have been done two centuries ago.”

Wilson and Hill (1908, p. 33) express their views as follows:--

“The animal itself, though pretty widely distributed, and probably still far from becoming extinct, is to be found, in any one locality, only in comparatively small numbers. It is now much less plentiful than formerly, owing to the demand for its fur--a demand which is still satisfied in spite of the measure of legal protection which the animal has obtained in the various Australian States. The depredations of the fur-hunter are not easily repaired, since the animal breeds only once in the year and produces but two eggs at a time.”

Lucas and Le Souef (1909, p. 144) comment on the protection extended to the animal by the States of New South Wales and Victoria, and add--“so we may hope that his tenure of existence may at least be considerably prolonged.”

The platypus is probably in no present danger of extinction; given a reasonable measure of effective protection, it is likely to last as long as the waters in which it lives. Quite apart from the measure of safety resulting from its secretive ways, it dwells in mountain streams running through many hundreds of miles of almost entirely uninhabited ranges, much of which never will be inhabited owing to the inhospitable nature of the country. Its aquatic habit saves it from the action of what has been the chief means of bringing about a diminution of the marsupial fauna--the opening up to pastoral and agricultural settlement of a great part of the country. Australia is not guiltless as concerns the destruction of marsupials, but it is not generally recognized how much of this destruction was inevitable. For that which was not inevitable--the wholesale destruction of grass-eating marsupials simply because they ate grass intended for sheep and cattle--the pastoral industry is already being called to account. The dingo, deprived of its natural marsupial food, is attacking flocks in an unprecedented manner, and greed and stupidity have defeated their own ends. The destruction of forests has brought with it the extermination of their tree-living inhabitants, as well as of the smaller terrestrial forms which sheltered beneath the trees. But the platypus has not been affected by these things.

One thing, and one thing only, can bring about the extinction of Ornithorhynchus, and that is the permitting of open traffic in its skin. The skin is small; but, in the present world-shortage of fur-skins, the beauty of the fur is sufficient to create a keen demand for it, if it once be made available. The Australian bushman is well able to follow the animal to its ultimate fastnesses if it be worth his while; but he is patriotic enough to refrain from slaughtering Australian fauna when his reason is appealed to.

At the present time the platypus is, and for some years has been, completely protected in all the Australian States in which it occurs. The laws of the different States vary in detail; but, after years of effort on the part of individuals and societies interested in animal preservation, they have been brought closely into line and all except certain scheduled native animals are protected--the eaters of grass and similar heinous offenders. Even these may be granted the protection of a close season, or of a period of absolute protection, in a district in which they are becoming depleted, at the discretion of the minister administering the Act. On paper, then, the future of the Australian fauna appears to be a rosy one.

Legislative enactment does not, however, entirely prevent traffic in platypus skins, and there is no doubt that large numbers are smuggled out of Australia under wrong descriptions, mixed in with parcels of rabbit and other small skins. The extent of this traffic cannot be ascertained, owing to the perfectly natural reticence of the people who engage in it.

Fortunately it is only in comparatively recent times that the skin of the platypus has become commercially desirable, and the growth of a national sentiment, together with the increasing difficulties placed in the path of the poacher, have combined to keep destruction down to a minimum. A certain amount of thoughtless and wanton destruction is almost inevitable, since youths in the country districts of eastern Australia grow up in an atmosphere of callous indifference to the lives of individual animals. This indifference is simply the natural outcome of large-scale pastoral operations in a country subject to sudden meteorological vicissitudes. Men who have grown accustomed to seeing hundreds of animals dying, which they are powerless to aid, cannot be expected to become sentimental about a platypus. In 1863 Gould (p. 1) wrote:--

“the diminution in its members is solely due to the wholesale destruction dealt out to it by the settlers, which, if not restrained, will ere long lead to the utter extirpation of this harmless and inoffensive animal, a circumstance which would be much to be regretted; it is in fact often killed from mere wantonness, or at most for no more useful purpose than to make slippers of its skin.”

According to Semon (1894, p. 12):--

“The fur is beautiful and thick, yet its qualities are not so good as to warrant the wearisome and deluding pursuit. Consequently the Duckbill is little pursued either by whites or blacks, and the early extinction of this paradoxical creature need not be feared.”

At present there is little danger of an export trade being developed; the Federal minister for customs can prevent the export of animals and animal products by the simple process of issuing an order-in-council. There is no doubt that the measure of protection enforced by the States during the last decade has had a valuable effect in increasing the numbers of platypus. A healthy popular sentiment in favour of Australian birds and mammals has also had a most gratifying growth during the same period. Books on Australian natural history are numerous, and additions are constantly being made to their number, whereas twenty years ago there were none of a popular character. The next generation of Australians will look upon its fauna with different eyes, and it is not likely that the platypus will be deprived of the protection it now enjoys.

In one respect, however, enthusiasm for animal protection is beginning to prove embarrassing, since accredited representatives of scientific institutions are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain permits to collect specimens for scientific purposes. The platypus is, from a scientific point of view, perhaps the most important mammal that exists, and a great deal of anatomical investigation remains to be done. The number of individuals required for scientific investigation is negligible when compared with the ordinary annual wastage. Moreover, zoologists are more interested than any other class of men in the continued existence of the animal, and are therefore least likely to threaten that existence. The rights of science should be safeguarded in any scheme of animal protection; but the enthusiastic people who raise their voices loudest for the preservation of native fauna have not, as a rule, a sufficient knowledge of science and its aims to appreciate those rights. They desire that no wild innocuous animal whatever shall be killed--which is in some respects a very laudable desire; but such an attitude betrays the want of a sense of proportion, and of knowledge of the balance of nature. It has been alleged quite seriously that collectors for overseas museums, though operating under jealously restricted permits, were bringing rare species within danger of extinction; and there was some outcry against the expedition on behalf of the British Museum being allowed to collect at all. Such allegations are ludicrously far from the truth, but they seem, when made loud and often, to carry a certain amount of weight with authorities who do not ask for responsible advice.

Natural enemies of the platypus appear to be few in number. The carpet-snake (Python variegatus) occasionally catches one, as has been found on opening up a gorged snake; but the toll it collects must be quite negligible, as a constricting snake could not take its prey in the burrows, and must depend upon their approaching its lurking-place on the open bank. It is probable that the omnivorous monitor lizard (Varanus varius) takes platypus on land, and possibly the Whistling Eagle and the Murray cod, in the water; but of this I have no definite evidence.

Its principal enemy at the present day, apart from man, is without doubt the introduced rabbit, which by a process of peaceful penetration has riddled banks where once the platypus enjoyed a quiet seclusion. I hold the opinion that the presence of rabbits tends in time to drive platypus from their accustomed haunts, and without suitable soil for brooding burrows they cannot multiply. I attribute their disappearance from settled regions almost entirely to this cause. The water-rat (Hydromys chrysogaster), which also burrows in the banks of streams, is in a less degree a disturbing factor.

The rabbit is followed by the trapper, and rabbit-traps set on river-banks and elsewhere are responsible for destruction of both the platypus and the echidna. The latter, being useless from a commercial point of view, is usually released, and frequently heals its wounds with reptilian indifference. The trapped platypus is, however, knocked on the head and relieved of its skin--for which proceeding there is at least this justification, that it would not be likely to survive its injuries, and, worse still, even the skin is destroyed when the whole carcass is thrown into the river to rot.

The greatest menace to the animal is, however, the fish-trap. Despite the fact that in most waters the use of traps is illegal, most homesteads on a river-frontage make use of traps to catch food for home consumption. These are heavy wire cages. They have a conical entrance, through which fish pass in, but are unable to escape. Platypus, in their blind nosings about the bottom, enter these traps simply by chance; as they cannot reach the surface to breathe, they are drowned. Naturally, since the animals are dead when the trap is examined in the morning, their skins are taken. It would be a simple enough matter to save the lives of the animals thus accidentally caught, if the users of fish-traps would take the trouble. An elongated funnel-shaped outlet of wire-netting, fixed vertically to the upper part of the trap, with the top portion open above water, would allow platypus, water-rats, and tortoise to escape by climbing up the spout, and still retain the fish. The device is quite simple to construct, and is also inexpensive.

Closer settlement will bring about the disappearance of snakes, lizards, rabbits, and rabbit-trappers. It may bring about an adequate regulation of fish-traps. The more important question is--Will it bring about the disappearance of the platypus? I do not see any reason why it should, if settlers will but refrain from the grosser methods of disturbing the creature. If shot at and hunted, either in wantonness or for their fur, the survivors will undoubtedly desert the waters in which they have been harried. But if a favourable public sentiment can be aroused, and some interest taken in the preservation of an interesting animal in the midst of closely settled communities, there is little doubt that the platypus will contrive to flourish, despite settlement. At Belltrees on the Hunter River in New South Wales, Mr. H. L. White--to whom Australian natural history owes a great debt--has made the homestead area a sanctuary, and the animal flourishes in those pleasant reaches of the river which meander through the lucerne flats of the home farm. Belltrees is quite a village, but the mere presence of many men, engaged in activities about the river-banks, has not frightened the platypus away.

2--ECONOMICS

Economically there is little to be said either for or against the platypus. It does no positive good; neither does it do any positive harm. It has a valuable fur, but neither exists in sufficient numbers, nor breeds sufficiently rapidly, nor lends itself to any scheme of cultivation in such a way as to hold out hope of its becoming an important national asset. It is not good to eat, and apparently serves no purpose useful to man.

The value of its fur is difficult to arrive at, since there is no open trade in it. During the Pan-Pacific Conference in 1923 a Sydney naturalist’s shop had a window-display of skins, priced ‘from thirty shillings each.’ Platypus rugs--the staple form of use of the fur in Australia in the past--rarely appear in auction-rooms now, but good ones, containing from fifty to sixty skins, are usually sold at about a guinea a skin. Should platypus fur ever be allowed to come into the open market, there is little doubt that prices much higher than those quoted would be obtained--and no doubt that the animal would be in danger of early extinction.

Mr. Clifford Coles has kindly supplied me with the following notes on the skin from a furrier’s point of view:--

“The fur of the platypus is without exception the best-wearing of all Australian furs. It is short, dense, glossy, and hard to the touch; in colour, dark brown down the back, graduating to a silvery whiteness on the flanks. Being somewhat even in length over the whole of the body, the utmost use can be made of the skin. The surface-hairs are very much coarser than the under-fur, which is dense, soft, and practically impervious to water. The skin is not in much request, primarily because of the thickness of its pelt rendering the finished article somewhat stiff. Modern methods have made this difficulty easy to overcome, but the reputation which the skin of the platypus obtained in the years when it was an article of commerce still holds with it, and the later generation, who only know the platypus of old, always think of it as a heavy-pelted fur and consequently do not seek it.

“One of the principal drawbacks to its use as a fur is the difficulty of manipulating the skin without leaving the furrier’s ‘cut’ marks in ‘dropping’ conspicuous to the view. The art of the furrier is to-day a great feature in fashionable furs. The skins, instead of being split and divided into sections end on end, are now, by a series of ‘V’ cuts, called ‘drops,’ altered to any shape desired. This is a matter of great difficulty in a fur having a short texture, as the knife-marks are conspicuous; and it is this fact which renders the platypus so unattractive to the furrier.

“The average woman of to-day, if shown a fur made of rabbit-skin properly dressed and dyed to a fashionable colour, and another of similar size made of platypus, would choose the rabbit-skin--not because she would be protecting one of the rarest animals in the world by the choice, but because the rabbit looks better and is very much softer to the touch.

“Platypus skins can be plucked so that the outer coarse hairs are entirely removed. When this is done, a soft and most delightful fur is obtained, closely resembling otter. In this form it is most durable. The writer has known platypus skins used in this way which have not been worn out after twenty years of service.

“Because of the restrictions which have been placed upon the capture of the animals, generally speaking, the skins are not on the market. One can go for a whole season through all the wholesale stores of Sydney and not see nor have offered him a single platypus pelt.

“Tasmania produces the finest quality of these skins. The fur there is longer, and the skins very much larger, than those from the mainland. Reports from fur-trappers all along the eastern watershed of Australia and Tasmania indicate that the animals are increasing in numbers.”

The flesh of the platypus must be extremely distasteful, since neither aborigines nor dogs will eat it. Bennett certainly states that the eyes of his aborigines glistened at the sight of fat young ones in fur, taken from the burrow, and that they said the animals were very good to eat; but he does not record any definite instance of their eating platypus flesh, and it may be that the sight of plump young animals called forth the remarks, and not any previous gastronomic experience. Semon (1894, p. 12) writes:--“The blacks on the Burnett do not hunt the animal, since they scorn its flesh entirely; as a matter of fact it gives forth an objectionable smell when skinned.” A correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegraph (10 February, 1923) records that some miners ate one, and found it a somewhat oily dish, with a taste between those of red herring and wild duck. The objectionable smell is due to scent-glands situated at the base of the neck; but it is unlikely that, even after these have been removed, the platypus will ever be a popular item on a bill of fare.

On the negative side, the only accusation brought against the animal is that by Jamison (1818), that he found ova and fry of fish in the platypus he examined. No one has repeated that observation. From the discussion of the animal’s feeding habits given earlier, it will be obvious that it is not likely to catch much in the way of actively-swimming fry; and its habits in captivity show that it does not care about fish as food. It may eat a certain amount of demersal spawn (though there is no satisfactory evidence that it does), but such a diet would be more or less accidental. Consequently its presence in streams which have been stocked with introduced trout cannot be said to be a danger to the fish. Large numbers of both platypus and trout are said to co-exist in the Tasmanian lakes.