Ban Opera House Nets
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Wildlife Queensland calls for our state government to stop stalling and ban deadly opera house traps before more aquatic mammals suffer.
Since 2009, Wildlife Queensland has pushed for a ban on opera house-style traps and funnel traps in Queensland.
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.
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.
Wildlife Queensland is once more calling for Queensland to follow the other states’ lead and say no to enclosed yabby traps (opera house nets).
Five Australian states have now implemented a full or phased ban on the use of the enclosed traps.
- The use of enclosed traps is banned in the ACT, and in all Victorian and Tasmanian public and private waters.
- New South Wales commenced a phase-out of enclosed traps from 30 April 2021.
- South Australia will commence a phase-out of enclosed traps from June 2023 in favour of wildlife-friendly pyramid nets.
We urge the Queensland Government to hurry up and ban opera house death traps in all Queensland public waters.
Send an email to the Hon. Mark Furner MP, Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries and Minister for Rural Communities and the Hon. Meaghan Scanlon MP, Minister for the Environment and the Great Barrier Reef and Minister for Science and Youth Affairs to say we need to change the legislation/regulation around the use of Opera House Nets in Queensland now!
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More ways to support platypuses
report trap sighting
Report any sightings of enclosed yabby traps (opera house nets) in local waterways in QLD (since 2015).
Visit PlatypusWatch
Head to our PlatypusWatch Network 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 with a tax-deductible donation.
Latest campaign news
Opera house traps have to go!
Wildlife Queensland is ramping up its campaign against these deadly threats to our wildlife, partnering again with Qld Alliance for Platypus to push for their ban in Queensland.
Opera house traps: the threat continues – August 2017
Opera House traps are still causing the drowning death of platypus and water rats in creeks and waterways across the country. Is current legislation clear and is the community really aware of the problems they cause?
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Authorised by Des Boyland, Secretary, Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, Suite 1, Level 1, 30 Gladstone Road, Highgate Hill, Brisbane, Qld 4101.