A video supplied to the Leader by a property owner on the outskirts of the city shows a platypus - believed to be a young male - gliding along the water surface.

The platypus was out cruising around in the late afternoon.

OzFish Northwest president Anne Michie said it was incredible to know the creatures were thriving locally after struggling through drought, a sign of a healthy ecosystem.

"We have known there has been platypus up and down the stretch of Peel River here and right into the CBD in town so it is great to see," she said.

"People are always amazed to see them close to town but they are such a shy little creature, they are probably around more often and we just don't see them."

Ms Michie said in all her years of working up and down riverbanks and waterways, she had seen very few platypus in the wild.

Her advice was to sit in silence and be at one with the river.

Though it also came down to simply being in the right place at the right time.

"If you just sit quietly in nature for long enough it's amazing what you see," she said.

READ ALSO:

The Peel River was reduced to puddles in places during the drought that gripped the region in the past few years.

The endangered platypus was one of the native species put at risk by the grim water levels.

Environmental flows were being released from Chaffey Dam - which at its worst had dropped to about 12 per cent in early 2020 - to try and sustain the Peel ecosystem.

In the past two years, the drought broke and the river is back bubbling along through Tamworth.

Chaffey Dam has been full for exactly a year this week and there's plenty of water washing down the river.

Ms Michie said platypus sightings were on the up.

"There are a few that hung on through the drought - like a lot of things - and our native wildlife are quite resilient to come back after the worst drought on record," she said.

Platypus are meat eaters and can use gravel from riverbeds in their cheek pouches to help grind up shrimp, crustaceans, yabbies and other small animals from the river, Ms Michie said.

"If you haven't got a healthy ecosystem then you haven't got the small creatures there for the platypus to live on," she said.

"We're getting more and more platypus sightings."

The drought time was heartbreaking for Ms Michie, who was left wondering how Tamworth would ever see anything flourish in the Peel River again.

Now, she said the trees they planted and nurtured are thriving and native fish are being caught across the Peel and the Namoi catchments.

"It's been awesome actually to see it come back," she said.

"It's been heartening to see our hard work is not in vain and it goes in cycles - we will see drought again - but it's been really nice to just enjoy it."

She said it was important to continue protecting the platypus population by looking after riverbank vegetation because that's where they nest.

"It's really good to see our resident platypus are making more little platypus and they will all find their little patch of the river that they want to live in," she said.

Platypus are largely solitary creatures who spend up to half their days looking for food.

The recent daylight sighting in Tamworth comes two years after researchers made the trip to Tamworth to look into the plight of the Peel River platypus.

The group from the University of NSW had been running a project probing platypus populations and the health of the Peel River during the drought.

Platypus sightings are encouraged to be reported.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: