Death trap: what to do about the everyday items catching and killing Australian wildlife
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- Wildlife entanglements are rising sharply in Australia, with at least 3,500 cases annually in NSW and more than 2,000 last year in Victoria, affecting hundreds of species including kangaroos, platypus, raptors and gliders.
- Flying foxes make up two-thirds of all entanglement cases in NSW, according to a study in Pacific Conservation Biology, with grey-headed flying foxes — listed as vulnerable under national environment laws — the worst affected, frequently caught on backyard nets and barbed wire in regional areas.
- Large-aperture fruit tree netting (mesh greater than 5mm) is now illegal to use or sell in Victoria and the ACT; Victoria's conservation regulator investigated 37 reports of illegal netting in the past year, and a single Victorian net-swap program saw 600 lethal nets surrendered and 359 wildlife-friendly replacements handed out free.
- Aquatic debris accounts for about 10% of NSW entanglement cases, with fishing line and rubbish — especially anything with loops like dropped hair ties — responsible for 8% of platypus mortalities in Victoria; Western Australia's Reel It In program has collected more than 250km of discarded fishing line from 192 yellow bins at fishing spots.
- Barbed wire fencing is the other major entanglement killer outside cities, with Wildlife Victoria rescuing more than 800 kangaroos from fences in the past year and a single north Queensland property reporting close to 250 little red flying foxes caught in a single week.
- Most states except Queensland have now banned the sale of enclosed yabby nets (opera house traps), which were particularly deadly to turtles, platypus and rakali.
Why it matters: Two-thirds of NSW entanglement cases involve grey-headed flying foxes already listed as vulnerable under national environment laws — meaning these preventable backyard deaths are hitting a population already in decline, with only Victoria and the ACT having banned the most lethal large-aperture netting so far while the rest of the country relies on voluntary net-swap programs.
