Queensland residents draws to the attention of the House concern that the opera house style fishing pots/traps being utilised and left in fresh waterways and ecosystems where platypus inhabit are in fact being found to be killing this iconic native to Australia animal in numbers. The platypus, sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic egg-laying mammal. Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five extant species of monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young.  Several platypus have been found drowned in these type of pots after being left behind in the waterways for too long, the platypus enter to eat the bait within and due to the style of trap the animal cannot get back out – therefore they die in a cruel and unnecessary manner.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House for a review of the harmful and disastrous effects on native wildlife with the improper use of opera house style traps. It is asked that the review allow that with the usage of this type of trap, they must be manned an checked within a two minute time frame to prevent the possibility of native animals such as the platypus entering and dying in doing so.