Helping

HEALESVILLE Primary School students Caitlin and Taylah will have a very special stake in protecting Healesville’s platypus population. The girls were among Grade 3 and 4 students, teachers and parents who joined Healesville Environment Watch Inc (HEWI) members involved in revegetation work along the Grace Burn on the last day of school term.
The students learned that the Grace Burn is home to a small but important platypus population, which is in danger of becoming isolated from the larger Watts and Yarra river populations.
“This creek used to harbour many young platypuses but since the creek banks have lost their protective bush, there have not been so many juveniles seen here,” a HEWI spokesperson told the students. More than 500 grasses, shrubs and trees were planted on the day, adding to the thousands which have been planted over the past nine years as part of the HEWI, Shire of Yarra Ranges and Healesville Primary School joint effort.