Ban Opera House Nets
© Canva NFP
Wildlife Queensland calls for our state government to stop stalling and ban deadly enclosed yabby traps (opera house nets) before more aquatic mammals suffer.
In 2014, the government of the day amended regulations to significantly reduce the size of the entrance hole of traps being used east of the Great Dividing Range and east of the Gore Highway. While this action was a step in the right direction, platypuses and other non-targeted air-breathing native fauna continue to be caught and drown in these traps — and their deaths are entirely preventable.
Read more about how enclosed traps pose a deadly threat to air-breathing aquatic mammals.
© Suzie Nicholls
Support our campaign
Wildlife Queensland is calling for Queensland to follow the other states’ lead and say no to enclosed yabby traps!
Queensland remains the only state not to fully ban the use and sale of these nets which are used in freshwater dams and waterways to catch red claw, yabbies and shrimp.
We urge the Queensland Government to hurry up and ban these death traps in all Queensland public waters.
Opera house traps of any size continue to pose a real threat to air-breathing aquatic mammals.
Platypuses swim in after a feed of yabbies and then can’t get out, they thrash around and they’re dead within minutes.
But, it’s not just platypuses, it’s also rakali, water dragons, turtles and fish, so it’s an animal welfare issue as well as a conservation one.
More ways to support platypuses
report trap
Report any sightings of enclosed yabby traps (opera house nets) in local waterways in QLD (since 2015).
Visit PlatypusWatch
Head to our PlatypusWatch web page for more ways you can help our threatened platypus populations.
Adopt a platypus
Support our vital PlatypusWatch conservation work by symbolically adopting a platypus.
Latest campaign news
© Canva NFP/Wildlife QldQLD Govt. considers ban on opera house nets: Have your say!
Fisheries Queensland is inviting feedback until 9 May 2024 from fishers and the wider community on recreational fishing reform options, including the proposed ban on opera house style nets (enclosed yabby traps).
© Canva NFP / Wildlife QueenslandAct now to save Queensland’s platypus and other aquatic wildlife!
Wildlife Queensland is making an urgent plea to Queenslanders to support the Society’s campaign to ban the use of deadly opera house nets (enclosed yabby traps).
© Canva NFPHave you seen the world’s only aquatic monotreme?
August is platypus month, an initiative embraced by Wildlife Queensland’s PlatypusWatch Network. Despite almost everyone knowing about the biological curiosity that is the world’s one and only living platypus species, many Queenslanders haven’t seen this elusive egg-laying mammal in the wild.
Authorised by Des Boyland, Secretary, Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, Suite 1, Level 1, 30 Gladstone Road, Highgate Hill, Brisbane, Qld 4101.