The Commercial Dugong and Marine Turtle Fisheries, 1847–1969

Australian Economic History Review, Vol. 48, No. 3 November 2008 ISSN 0004-8992 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8446.2008.00240.x

EXPLOITING MARINE WILDLIFE IN QUEENSLAND: THE COMMERCIAL DUGONG AND MARINE TURTLE FISHERIES, 1847–1969

By Ben Daley,Peter Griggs and Helene Marsh James Cook University

The historical exploitation of marine resources in Queensland has only been partially documented. In particular, the history of the commercial ﬁshing of dugongs and marine turtles has received comparatively little scholarly attention. Since European settlement in Queensland, various human activities have exploited these resources. We present documentary and oral history evidence of the scale of those industries. Based on extensive archival and oral history research, we argue that diverse ﬁshing practices occurred and that the sustained exploitation of dugongs, green turtles, and hawksbill turtles led to observable declines in the numbers of these animals – now species of conservation concern.

JEL categories: N57, O13, Q22, Q29, Q57

Keywords: commercial ﬁsheries, dugongs, Great Barrier Reef, marine turtles, Australia

INTRODUCTION Europeans began settling what was to become the British colony of Queensland in northeast Australia from the 1820s onwards. Here they encountered a land that contained abundant resources that could be exploited: forests rich in red cedar; minerals, particularly gold, coal, tin and copper; and fertile soils that supported crops of sugar cane, maize, and wheat. Well-grassed land enabled a thriving pastoral industry to be established rapidly and dairying was ﬂourishing in the better-watered parts of southern Queensland by 1900.1 The coastal waters were also resource-rich, containing pearl-shell, bêche-de-mer, marine turtles, dugongs,

1 For the best general account of the exploitation of Queensland’s resources until 1915, see Fitzgerald, From the Dreaming to 1915.

© 2008 The Authors 227 Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 228 Ben Daley, Peter Griggs and Helene Marsh whales, and many species of estuary and reef fish. The historical exploitation of marine resources in Queensland, however, has been only partially documented. Regina Ganter published a detailed study of the pearl-shelling industry between 1860 and 1960, while Noel Loos provided the most comprehensive account of the bêche-de-mer fishery in North Queensland between 1861 and 1897 and its reliance on Aboriginal workers.2 The impact of the short-lived commercial humpback whale fishery that operated from 1952 until 1962, based at the Tangalooma whaling station on Moreton Island, has also been documented. That fishery resulted in the sharp decline of the east Australian humpback whale population, with numbers falling from an estimated 10,000 animals to around 500 in a single decade.3 The operation and the impact of the Queensland commercial dugong and marine turtle fisheries have been documented less thoroughly, and the exploitation of these animals is little mentioned in the seminal works of Australian environmental history.4 Concerns about the historical exploitation of marine wildlife species have been expressed in recent scientific debates about the status of marine ecosystems worldwide. Many authors claim that marine ecosystems are deteriorating rapidly because of the over-harvesting of marine species, marine pollution, and climate change.5 The coastal waters of Queensland include the areas now defined as the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA), Torres Strait, Hervey Bay and Moreton Bay, all of which are important marine ecosystems containing animals listed as species of conservation concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).6 These areas contain critical marine habitats, including feeding grounds, breeding areas, and refuges. Particular concerns have been expressed about the condition of the GBRWHA, which, whilst regarded as one of the most pristine coral reef ecosystems in the world, nonetheless displays evidence of system-wide decline, including a large reduction in marine mammal numbers since European settlement.7 However, previous assessments of the magnitude of European impact on marine wildlife species have been generally based on a relatively uncritical use of secondary sources. Those studies have been

2 Ganter, Pearl-Shellers of Torres Strait; Loos, Invasion and Resistance, pp. 118–39. 3 Corkeron, The status of cetaceans in the GBRMP, pp. 283–6; GBRMPA, Whale and Dolphin Conservation; Jones, The Whalers of Tangalooma 1952–1962; Orams and Forestell, From whale harvesting to whale watching, pp. 667–73; Paterson et al., The status of humpback whales, pp. 135–42. 4 However, see Bowen and Bowen, Great Barrier Reef ; Johnson, Modified form of whaling; Limpus et al., The green turtle, Chelonia mydas, population of Raine Island, pp. 349–440. 5 Bellwood et al., Confronting the coral reef crisis, pp. 827–33; Hughes et al., Climate change, pp. 929–33; Hughes et al., New paradigms, pp. 380–6; Jackson et al., Historical overfishing, pp. 629–38; Pandolfi et al., Global trajectories, p. 957. 6 The IUCN is the oldest and largest global environmental network, which publishes authoritative assessments of the conservation status of species worldwide; see IUCN (2007) IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The GBRWHA has been acknowledged as an environment of global significance because of its superlative natural phenomena; see Bowen and Bowen, Great Barrier Reef ; Lawrence et al., Great Barrier Reef ; Veron, A Reef in Time. 7 Bellwood et al. Confronting the coral reef crisis; Hopley et al., Geomorphology of the Great Barrier Reef, p. 3; Jackson et al., Historical overfishing; Pandolfi et al., Global trajectories.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 Exploiting marine wildlife in Queensland 229 challenged recently on the basis of modern scientific methods and improved understanding of the ecology of marine mammals.8 Given the current conservation threats to dugong and marine turtles, there is a need to use historical sources more critically to reconstruct the operation and likely impact of the commercial fisheries in Queensland that exploited those resources. The purpose of this article is to reconstruct the historical commercial dugong and marine turtle fisheries and to indicate the likely scale of their ecological impact. Specifically, our intention is to inform estimates of the influence of European practices on dugong and marine turtle populations based on extensive documentary and oral history research. Thus, the article begins with a discussion of commercial dugong fishing in Queensland for the period 1847–1969, followed by a history of the commercial marine turtle fishery for the period 1867–1962. Those accounts describe exploitative – and largely unsustainable – industries that played distinct, but limited, roles in the history of European settlement in Australia. In this article, we aim to assess the environmental significance of those industries and to derive implications for contemporary environmental management – both by providing estimates of the human impact on particular species that require distinct management and conservation practices, and by indicating the magnitude of the ecological effect that can occur in the absence of effective regulation and adequate marine protected areas. Above all, we argue that while the commercial fishery practices we describe ceased almost 40 years ago, the human impact on dugongs and marine turtles in Queensland waters continues to require long-term, effective management, based on scientific research and monitoring linked with agreed environmental performance indicators. Evidence of the operation of the fisheries was obtained primarily in the Queen- sland State Archives (QSA) in Brisbane: in the official records of the former Queensland Department of Aboriginal and Island Affairs and the Queensland Department of Harbours and Marine (QDHM). Other evidence was found in the Annual Reports of the QDHM and in the various reports of the Queensland Inspectors of Fisheries, published in the Queensland Parliamentary Papers (QPP) and in the Queensland Votes and Proceedings (QVP). Export statistics were obtained from the Statistics of the Colony of Queensland (SCQ ) and the Statistics of the State of Queensland (SSQ ). Other documentary evidence was gained from historical books and photographs, especially the collections held at the John Oxley Library in Brisbane. Those documentary sources were supplemented with oral histories provided by expert informants who observed changes in dugong and marine turtle populations, or who participated in the commercial fisheries. Informants were recruited using a snowballing technique; a total of 47 original semi-structured interviews were recorded between October 2002 and December 2003. The complete oral history collection has been deposited at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) Library in Townsville. The evidence was cross-referenced

8 The complex issues involved in reconstructing historical populations of marine animals are discussed in Marsh et al., Historical marine population estimates, pp. 481–92.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 230 Ben Daley, Peter Griggs and Helene Marsh wherever possible in order to verify sources and to comply with widely accepted methodological principles for qualitative research.9 While extensive efforts were made to obtain detailed records describing the operation of the commercial fisheries, a qualifying comment is necessary. Unlike the east Australian humpback whale fishery, the Queensland commercial dugong and marine turtle fisheries operated – at least in their earlier periods – with very limited, if any, government regulation or scientific monitoring. Furthermore, the surviving documentary record of the operation of these fisheries is incomplete for several reasons, including the probable loss of relevant information when the offices of the QDHM in Brisbane were inundated during the Australia Day floods of 1974.10 Therefore, precise reconstructions of the extent of the depletion of dugongs and marine turtles cannot be made and estimates of the former population sizes, based on documentary and oral history sources, require careful interpretation based on current scientific knowledge of the ecology of those species. Marsh et al. investigated the assumptions involved in reconstructing historical dugong population sizes in the southern coastal waters of Queensland and argued that such assumptions should be made explicit in estimates of former population sizes.11

COMMERCIAL DUGONG FISHING IN QUEENSLAND, 1847–1969 The dugong (Dugong dugon) is an herbivorous marine mammal that is widely distributed in Queensland coastal waters, including the inshore waters of the Great Barrier Reef, which are considered to be one of the species’ strongholds. The dugong is listed as vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN because of various factors, including variations in seagrass availability, incidental drowning in shark nets set for bather protection, accidental by-catch in commercial gill nets, vessel strikes, habitat loss, and over-fishing by humans.12 Dugongs are long-lived, slow- breeding animals; hence anthropogenic impacts – in combination with the depen- dence of the animal on seagrass as a source of food – mean that the maintenance of dugong numbers and the recovery of depleted populations are now difficult to achieve. Dugongs are also highly mobile: individual animals may move many hundreds of kilometres in several days. As a consequence, stresses on local populations of dugongs are difficult to assess.13 The modern pressures on the species

9 Allen and Montell, From Memory to History; Denzin and Lincoln, Introduction; Gillham, The Research Interview; Robertson, Oral History Handbook. 10 For discussions of the difﬁculties in the use of archival and other documentary sources, see Daley, Changes in the Great Barrier Reef ; Daley and Griggs, Mining the reefs and cays; McLoughlin, Environmental history; McLoughlin, Shaping Sydney Harbour. 11 Marsh et al., Historical marine population estimates. 12 Marsh et al., Dugong: Status Report; Marsh et al., Historical marine population estimates; Lucas et al., The Outstanding Universal Value of the GBRWHA. 13 Marsh et al., Conserving marine mammals; Marsh et al., Dugong: Status Report, pp. 1–3; Sheppard et al., Movement heterogeneity; Sheppard et al., Seagrass as pasture.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 Exploiting marine wildlife in Queensland 231 occur in a context of historical exploitation. Dugongs were captured for the manufacture of medicinal oil, which was used in Aboriginal settlements between 1940 and 1971, and they have also been hunted for their meat by Indigenous Australians – a practice which long pre-dates European settlement and which continues today. The combined effect of these activities probably amounts to unsustainable exploitation – at least at particular times and in localised areas – that may have reduced dugong numbers considerably. Declining dugong numbers were reported as early as the 1880s and the species obtained legal protection in 1888, indicating that dugong populations have been threatened by human activity for longer than a century. Although the relative ecological effect of Indigenous Australian hunting of dugongs and of the historical European commercial fisheries have not been precisely determined, both factors (in addition to other impacts, such as variations in seagrass availability) have probably contributed to declines in dugong numbers.14 European commercial dugong fishing took place intermittently from 1847 until 1969 in the Moreton Bay area and for shorter periods at other locations on the Queensland coast. Dugong oil, hides, bones and meat were produced at stations in Moreton, Tin Can, Wide, Hervey and Rodds Bays, and also at a small dugong factory in Cardwell, as shown in Figures 1 and 2. Although the industry had declined by 1920, commercial dugong fishing occurred in the Moreton Bay area from 1847 until 1969.15 In common with the Tangalooma whaling operation, commercial dugong fishing occurred with little regard for the sustainability of the harvest. Johnson has argued that such disregard resulted from a perception that the ‘bounteous seas’ would provide a limitless supply of animals. European commercial dugong fishing was pioneered by several dugong hunters at Amity Point, on North Stradbroke Island, Moreton Bay. The fishery was operating by January 1847, although Welsby indicated that some dugong fishing occurred earlier at Amity Point, during the 1830s, and also at Pelican Banks. The fishery produced dugong oil for cooking and for the production of cosmetics, which represented a new export from Queensland.16 The creation of a market for dugong oil is attributed to Dr William Hobbs, the Queensland Government Medical Officer, who encouraged the manufacture of medicinal dugong oil after 1852 as a substitute for cod liver oil. Hobbs exhibited dugong oil samples at the Sydney Museum and the 1855 Paris Exposition. His efforts prompted the establishment of a dugong-fishing station at St Helena Island, in Moreton Bay in 1856, and subsequently dugong fishing expanded northwards.17 From 1861, the availability and use of dugong oil was documented in The Lancet and Pugh’s Almanac, as illustrated in Figure 3. In addition to local

14 Crouch et al., Berberass: marine resource specialisation. 15 Johnson, Modiﬁed form of whaling, p. 27. 16 Sydney Morning Herald, 25 January 1847, p. 2; Welsby, Early Moreton Bay Recollections, pp. 52 and 57. 17 Loyau, The History of Maryborough,p.365.

140ºE 10ºS Torres Strait (various islands)

GREAT

Cape Bedford Cooktown • BARRIER

Cairns •

Innisfail • Cardwell

Townsville • Bowen • REEF

Proserpine •

Mackay •

QUEENSLAND Rockhampton • Repulse Bay

Gladstone • Rodds Bay Bundaberg • Dugong fishing operations Hervey Bay Wide Bay Tin Cay Bay 0 KILOMETRES 500

140ºE 155ºE 28ºS Moreton Bay 28ºS

Figure 1. Locations of individual dugong-ﬁshing operations in Queensland, 1847–1969.

Figure 2. Periods of operation of individual dugong-fishing operations in Queensland, 1847–1969. demand, an order for 1,000 gallons (4,546 litres) of dugong oil was placed in 1862 by a British supplier of pharmacists.18 In 1860, Bennett described the methods used in the commercial dugong fishery, including the use of a floating station, harpoons and nets: A small cutter was fitted out early in the season, with a boiler for ‘trying down’ the oil [. . .] and the animal was to be harpooned in a manner similar to that by which whales are captured. The success, however, was so indifferent, that it did not pay the expenses, and was abandoned [. . .]. Since that time nets have been employed, and the result has been more productive. The nets are usually cast at night, in the places frequented by the animals, who [sic] become entangled in the meshes, and on average about two are captured every night.19 The use of the floating station and harpoons suggests that the dugong fishery operated initially as a derivative of commercial whaling, although nets soon replaced harpoons. Bennett documented the oil yields from large dugongs,

18 Brisbane Courier, 4 September 1862, p. 2; Brisbane Courier, 31 July 1863; Pugh’s Almanac,p.48; Thorne, The Queen of Colonies, pp. 257 and 264; Welsby, Sport and Pastime, pp. 86 and 193. 19 Bennett, Gatherings of a Naturalist, pp. 165–6.

Figure 3. An advertisement for dugong oil, 1870. Source: Pugh’s Almanac, 1870, no pagination. stating: ‘A full-grown animal yields from 10 to 12 gallons of oil. [. . .] Some are very large, and weigh from 8 cwt to half a ton’, although he acknowledged wide variability in oil yields.20 By 1864, in addition to the fishing stations in southern Queensland, a small dugong-fishing station had commenced operating at Cardwell. By 1865, the possibility of a substantial dugong oil industry had been recognised as dugong numbers were reported to be very large in Queensland waters.21 Describing what he regarded as ‘a new and important branch of industry’, Rowe stated: The dugong (Halicore australis) is abundant on all the eastern coasts of the colony [. . .]. Now that the oil is discovered to be valuable, it is exported to England in such quantities, that the fate of the dugong is sealed; and the fishery will eventually drive it in diminished numbers to the farthest and least approachable spots on the extreme north of the coast.22

20 Bennett, Gatherings of a Naturalist, p. 166. Early quantities are reported in the original cited British Imperial measures. One gallon is 4.55 litres; one pound (lb) is 0.454 kg; one hundredweight (cwt) is 112 lbs or 50.80 kg; one long ton is 2,240 lbs (20 cwt) or 1,016 kg. 21 Anonymous, Dugong oil: correspondence, p. 508; Eden, My Wife and I in Queensland, pp. 295–6; Johnson, Modiﬁed form of whaling, pp. 31–2; Jones, Cardwell Shire Story, p. 121. 22 Rowe, The Colonial Empire of Great Britain, pp. 123–4.

Exports of dugong oil from Queensland, 1870-1902

200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60

Dugong oil (gallons) 40 20 0 1870 1873 1876 1879 1882 1885 1888 1891 1894 1897 1900 Year

Figure 4. Quantities of dugong oil exported from Queensland, 1870–1902. Source: Compiled from data published in SCQ, 1870–1900; and SSQ, 1901–02.

A report published in the Brisbane Courier in 1869, however, acknowledged that the distribution of dugongs in Queensland coastal waters was uneven. The animals were more numerous in Wide, Hervey, and Rodds Bays than in Moreton Bay and were found ‘at all seasons of the year in almost incredible numbers’ in the tropical latitudes of Queensland.23 From 1870, dugong oil, hides, tusks, and bones were exported from Queen- sland to New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, Britain, and Canada.24 Quantities of oil exported from Queensland from 1870 to 1902 are illustrated in Figure 4, which shows considerable fluctuations, although some large quantities of oil were shipped. In addition to the oil, 291 dugong hides and 4 cwt of dugong bones were exported to Great Britain between 1876 and 1878.25 The hides were used to manufacture leather products; the bones were used to produce ornamen- tal cutlery handles. Soap was also manufactured using dugong stearin (the mate- rial that remained in the filters after the oil had been drained) and this product was exported to London. However, despite the lucrative prospects of the export trade and Hobbs’ efforts to secure an overseas market for dugong products, the majority of the dugong oil, hides, and bones were sold at the Brisbane markets, while the meat was cured and sold – or given away – at the fishing stations.26 In an account of 1876, Thorne noted the abundance of dugongs and described the fishing operations in the Moreton Bay area, attributing their lack of success to

23 This report is cited in Thorne, The Queen of Colonies, p. 254. 24 These statistics were published in SCQ (for the years 1870–1900) and SSQ (for the years 1901–02). 25 These statistics were compiled from SCQ (for the years 1870–1900) and SSQ (for the years 1901–02). 26 Johnson, Modiﬁed form of whaling, p. 32.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 236 Ben Daley, Peter Griggs and Helene Marsh the ‘intemperance of the men employed’.27 During the 1870s, dugong processing stations continued to operate at Tin Can, Wide, and Hervey Bays, although instances of contamination of dugong oil had by that time affected the market. Thorne reported that an average dugong produced five or six gallons of oil and 100–200 pounds of meat, and that a large animal could weigh as much as a ton and could produce up to 20 gallons of oil; a much larger figure than Bennett reported in 1860. Thorne also described extremely large herds of thousands of dugongs, including one ‘which appeared to fill the water’ and was estimated to be ‘half a mile wide and from three to four miles long’.28 Considering the apparent size of those herds and the extent of the dugong feeding grounds, Thorne saw no limit to the potential of the commercial dugong fishery. During the 1880s, more systematic analyses of dugong numbers and behaviour were undertaken. In 1882, dugong meat was still readily sold in Brisbane, as Boyd acknowledged, but an apparent scarcity of dugongs was reported by J. Lionel Ching of Maryborough, who stated: ‘We left Great Sandy Island Strait in 1880, and since our return, eighteen months since, have found the dugong much scarcer’.29 In 1886, C. S. Fison, the Queensland Inspector of Fisheries, reported that observations of dugongs had been made along the coast.30 In 1887, Fison stated: ‘There are a considerable number of [dugongs] still in Moreton Bay, and already one man here with only one net has been able to take 18 head during this season’. Dugongs were sold for £5 each and were caught with long nets made from manila rope. A pattern to their abundance had also been noticed; dugongs were abundant in southern Queensland waters after flood seasons, but they could easily be driven away by boat traffic. The variable occurrence of the ‘weed’ on which the dugongs fed themselves was also recognised.31 Disputes had arisen about the organisation of the fishery. One concern was the advisability of expanding the existing system of dugong-fishing licences. In 1888, Ching called for the wider use of licences, claiming that he was the only licensed dugong fisherman in Queensland, despite the fact that ‘many parties’ fished for the animal to the north of Wide Bay. A second issue was the acceptability of dugong- fishing methods. Not all dugong fishers used the large-meshed nets that Ching had adopted; smaller-meshed nets prevented dugong calves from escaping, and the use of harpoons by other fishers led to the wasteful destruction of animals. Ching complained that the damage caused by harpooning was ‘utterly ruining’ his business and he argued that the use of 36-inch mesh nets should be mandatory for dugong fishers. However, because a suckling dugong calf without a mother would be unlikely to survive, even the exclusive use of large mesh-size nets may have been

27 Thorne, The Queen of Colonies, pp. 248–9. 28 Bennett, Gatherings of a Naturalist, p. 166; Thorne, The Queen of Colonies, pp. 254 and 260–6. 29 Boyd, Queensland, p. 30; Ching, cited in Fison, Report on the oyster and other industries, 1888, p. 764. 30 Fison, Report on the oyster fisheries of Moreton Bay (1886, pp. 833–5). 31 Fison, Report on the oyster fisheries of Moreton Bay, 1887, p. 123; Fison, Report on the oyster and other industries, 1888, p. 764; Johnson, Modified form of whaling, p. 34; Welsby, Sport and Pastime, pp. 57 and 72.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 Exploiting marine wildlife in Queensland 237 an insufficient conservation measure. Ching also reported that he had imported a steam plant from England for boiling-down dugong oil more efficiently.32 By 1888, the low reproductive rate of the dugong was beginning to be appre- ciated. Fison stated that dugongs ‘breed once a year, and have only one calf at a time’. Modern research indicates that dugongs actually breed much less often than this.33 Fison also reported that of the 16 dugongs caught in Moreton Bay in 1888, almost all ‘were cows in calf, or the young calves were found attending the mother’. The unsustainability of such a harvest was recognised and restrictions on dugong fishing in Moreton Bay were introduced for a two-year period under the Queensland Fisheries Act (1887) in an attempt to prevent ‘the utter extermination of the herd’. By 1889, the sporadic presence of a small herd of dugongs had been reported on the western side of Moreton Island, but Fison stated that these animals were protected under the same clause of the Queensland Fisheries Act (1887).34 Fison’s reports indicate that concerns about the unsustainability of the harvest prompted an early legal intervention to conserve dugongs in Queensland. The excessive destruction of dugongs was also reported in 1890 by William Saville-Kent:

a great amount of harm is done to the legitimate dugong fishery through the wasteful destruction of the animal in Wide Bay by means of harpooning, and also through the extensive slaughter of the young calves.35 Saville-Kent recommended that dugong fishing should be restricted exclusively to the use of stake-nets with a mesh-size of at least one yard square, which he believed would allow the calves to escape. In 1892, the restrictions on the dugong fishery expired and commercial dugong fishing recommenced at North Stradbroke Island. Concerns about the unsustainability of the fishery had not been allayed. In response to the scale of the resump- tion in dugong fishing, a second two-year closure was introduced on 1 January 1893. That closure was rescinded in June of the same year after large herds of dugongs entered Moreton Bay; a migration attributed to the extensive flooding in south-eastern Queensland during February 1892.36 The complete closure of the fishery was replaced with an annual three-month open season. Harpooning was prohibited and a more comprehensive licensing system was introduced.37 By the end of 1893, the Queensland commercial dugong fisheries had been regulated in a way similar to other commercial fisheries, with restrictions of permitted equip- ment and with spatial and temporal closures of fishing grounds.

32 Cited in Fison, Report on the oyster and other industries, 1888, p. 764. 33 Marsh and Kwan, Temporal variability. 34 Fison, Report on the oyster and other industries, 1888, p. 764. Fison, Report on the oyster ﬁsheries of Moreton Bay (1889, p. 939). 35 Saville-Kent, Fisheries, Wide Bay district, p. 713. 36 Johnson, Modiﬁed form of whaling, p. 36. 37 Welsby, Sport and Pastime,p.69.

In 1893, Saville-Kent provided the following details of dugong processing at a station in Repulse Bay, near Mackay (Fig. 1):

1 The hides, if well-cured, realise a price of 4 /2 d per lb, the large tusks of the male about half-a-crown per pair, while the bones make the best charcoal for sugar refining. [. . .] After many years’ experience, it has been found at the Repulse Bay station that the old cows yield the most oil, the quantity being sometimes as much as eight or ten gallons, but on the average only four or five. The winter months, with respect to the amount of oil obtained, are the most profitable ones for the industry.38 In contrast to southern Queensland waters, Saville-Kent stated that the northern Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait had no systematic dugong fishery, although Indigenous hunting of dugongs occurred in those regions. Fison reported that the dugong fishery in Moreton Bay was successful during the open season of 1894, yet by 1896 dugongs were again scarcely caught in Moreton Bay, although Fison later acknowledged that the animals remained numerous in the northern Great Barrier Reef.39 Thereafter, the dugong industry failed to supply a significant market for oil and only a small, intermittent fishery existed between 1900 and the 1920s. In 1902, James H. Stevens, Queensland Inspector of Fisheries, stated: The demand for dugong during the last winter has not been a sufficient inducement for fishermen, although the fish [sic] has been plentiful. The only person who did start caught 30, and so did very well, selling the hides at 7 d per lb for carriage brakes. The flesh, too, served a good purpose [. . .].40 In addition, 55 gallons of dugong oil were exported from Queensland to Victoria in 1902. Stevens attributed the lack of fishing effort to the collapse of the market that resulted from contamination of the dugong oil. Initially, the impurity of the oil was blamed on negligence during the refining process; subsequently, samples of the oil were found to have been diluted with large quantities of shark oil. In 1905, Welsby stated that in Moreton Bay dugongs were ‘not nearly so numerous as in years past’. Stevens reported that the dugong fishery in the Moreton Bay area was ‘at a standstill’ as only eight animals were caught during the season; yet he stated that high prices could still be obtained for dugong oil and hides if production were increased, and he acknowledged that much larger stocks of dugongs were found in coastal waters to the north of Wide Bay. The following year, using one net, the dugong catch in Moreton Bay increased to 45 dugongs, all of which were caught during an eight-week period.41 By 1907, dugong-fishing stations were still operating in Moreton Bay at Amity Point and Pelican Banks. The following year, the Moreton Bay fishery was again

38 Saville-Kent, Great Barrier Reef, p. 328. 39 Fison, Report on the oyster and other ﬁsheries, 1894, p. 1113; Fison, Annual report, 1896, p. 637. 40 Stevens, Annual report, 1902, p. 967. 41 SSQ (1902, p. 199); Stevens, Annual report, 1905, pp. 1041–2; Stevens, Annual report, 1906, p. 1419; Welsby, Schnappering and Fishing,p.95.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 Exploiting marine wildlife in Queensland 239 unsuccessful because of poor weather. By 1908, the oil was ‘almost unobtainable’. A shipment of 70 bottles was sent to the Franco-British Exhibition that year, which represented almost all of the available supplies. In 1909, the scarcity of animals was attributed to a lack of seagrass at the Moreton and Boolong Banks, and no further dugong fishing was reported in 1910.42 A small increase in activity occurred in Moreton Bay in 1911, with 16 or 17 large animals being caught at Boolong Banks; around that time, another dugong fishery commenced at Burrum Heads, in Hervey Bay, where dugong fishing was easy because ‘the dugong were plentiful and caught very close to the beach’.43 Stevens, however, continued to express concerns about the decline of dugong numbers. His concerns were shared by Banfield who, in 1913, reported that dugongs appeared to be less abundant in Hinchinbrook Channel than in previous years.44 A small revival of the commercial dugong fishery took place during the First World War, prompted by shortages of cod-liver oil, but the revival was short-lived because of the scarcity of dugongs. Limited dugong fishing continued during the 1920s. In 1923, the Amity Point station still supplied dugong oil, meat, hides, tusks, and bones. By that year, dugong hides were being used to manufacture high-quality leather, engine belts, and carriage brakes.45 In 1923, however, a publication by the Queensland Government Intelligence and Tourist Bureau (QGITB), compiled by the Great Barrier Reef Committee (GBRC), stated that dugongs were ‘too rare to provide meat for the butchering trade’ and expressed uncertainty about the survival of the species.46 In general, only intermittent fishing for dugongs took place in Moreton Bay during the 1920s, not only because of the reported scarcity of the animals but also because general fishing and oyster harvesting had become more lucrative.47 Dugong abundance was a complex issue. Concerns were expressed about declining dugong numbers. In 1922, for example, Banfield complained of the increasing rarity of dugongs in Hinchinbrook Channel because of their slaughter by Japanese trochus, bêche-de-mer, and pearl-shell fishers. Nevertheless, dugong fishing continued at Burrum Heads, new operations commenced at Toogoom and in the Isis River area, and anecdotal reports of large herds of dugongs continued to be made, including a sighting of at least 80 dugongs in Moreton Bay in 1928.48 While some authors acknowledged that the vast herds once reported in Moreton Bay were no longer seen, uncertainty existed about the extent of the decline in

42 Stevens, Annual report, 1908, p. 907; Stevens, Annual report, 1909, p. 931; Stevens, Annual report, 1910, p. 928; Welsby, Early Moreton Bay Recollections, pp. 52 and 57. 43 Changes in the Great Barrier Reef since European Settlement, Oral History Cassette (OHC) No. 34, 12 October 2003; Johnson, Memories: Burrum Heads,p.77. 44 Banﬁeld, Confessions of a Beachcomber, p. 162; Stevens, Annual report, 1911, p. 1192; Stevens, Annual report, 1913, p. 1033; Stevens, Annual report, 1914, p. 975. 45 Johnson, Modiﬁed form of whaling, p. 37; Stevens, Annual report, 1918, p. 1665; Stevens, Annual report, 1919, p. 342; Welsby, Sport and Pastime, pp. 84–5. 46 QGITB, Great Barrier Reef,p.23. 47 Dick, Annual report, 1930, p. 40; Stevens, Annual report, 1920, p. 570. 48 Allen, Extinct and Vanishing Mammals, p. 533; Johnson, Memories: Burrum Heads, p. 77; OHC 34, 12 October 2003; Welsby, Sport and Pastime,p.56.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 240 Ben Daley, Peter Griggs and Helene Marsh dugong numbers; the animals may have become more timid or their herding behaviour may have altered. In 1931, Welsby acknowledged that the distribution of dugongs corresponded to the distribution of seagrass as dugongs were seen feeding even at the extreme edges of seagrass beds that uncovered at low tide. Dugong tracks could be observed through seagrass beds – even if the animals themselves could not be seen – and the ability of Indigenous fishers to ‘read’ the age of dugong tracks was exploited in setting dugong nets.49 Yet the difficulty in estimating the size of dugong populations remained. Welsby stated: ‘It is strange how many boating parties pass over the waters of Moreton Bay and never see a dugong’. He also stated that ‘dozens and dozens’ of dugongs were reported to be present in the waters between Wynnum and Amity Point and that the animals ‘abound upon and around the Moreton, Amity and Pelican banks in hundreds the whole year through’.50 Such reports indicate the uncertainty that characterised early estimates of the dugong population in Moreton Bay. Yet that dugong population continued to support sporadic commercial fisheries, which probably resumed in response to the need for employ- ment in the deteriorating economic conditions of the 1930s. Dugong fishing may also have been stimulated in Hervey Bay by the establishment of a company at Wynnum manufacturing a variety of fish and shark products.51 One party fished for dugongs in Moreton Bay and in the Burrum River during 1930 and 1931, catching 35 animals of varying sizes in one month at the latter location. The following season, about 100 dugongs were caught in Hervey Bay. By 1935, dugong fishing was concentrated in Hervey Bay where 19 dugongs were caught, followed by a larger harvest in 1936 in which one fisher caught 30 animals. In 1937 and 1938, 50 and 35 dugongs were caught, respectively.52 A summary of documented dugong catches in Moreton Bay between 1884 and 1938 is given in Figure 5. Uncertainty about the size of the dugong catches for the years 1912–28, attributed to the omission of dugong harvest data from the Annual Reports of the Inspector of Fisheries, is apparent from the information missing from Figure 5. The omission probably reflects the comparatively low status of the dugong fishery in Queensland. However, Figure 5 illustrates the increased effort that took place in the fishery during the years 1930–38. As a result, by around 1940, dugong populations were reported to be ‘rapidly diminishing in numbers’.53 Furthermore, no information was published about dugong fishing elsewhere. Lack acknowledged that commercial dugong fishing continued in 1940, with centres at Hervey Bay and Torres Strait, and that 70 dugongs were caught in Hervey Bay during that year. Intermittent fisheries continued to supply dugong oil

49 Welsby, Sport and Pastime, pp. 62–3. 50 Welsby, Sport and Pastime, pp. 103–4. 51 Dick, Annual report, 1932, p. 6. 52 Dick, Annual report, 1931, p. 6; Dick, Annual report, 1935, p. 1091; Dick, Annual report, 1936, p. 1142; Dick, Annual report, 1937, p. 1403; Dick, Annual report, 1938, p. 1283; see also Lack, Dugong ﬁshing, p. 5. 53 Tennant, Marvels of the Great Barrier Reef,p.49.

Dugong catches in Moreton Bay, 1884-1938 120

100

Number of dugongs 20 [No records] 0 1884 1888 1892 1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 1916 1920 1924 1928 1932 Year

Figure 5. Numbers of dugongs caught in Moreton Bay, 1884–1938 (where records are available). Source: Compiled from data published in QVP, 1884–1900; and QPP, 1901–38.

Figure 6. Dugongs caught in Hervey Bay by Bill Bilsborough, c.1937. Source: Photograph obtained from Mrs Anita Jensen, courtesy of Professor Helene Marsh. for medical purposes and for the manufacture of cosmetic creams, with around 200 dugongs being caught annually at Burrum Heads alone. The annual harvest of that single operation (illustrated in Fig. 6) represents approximately 12 per cent of the total estimated dugong population of Hervey Bay in 1999.54 Given

54 Marsh and Lawler, Dugong Distribution; OHC 34, 12 October 2003; Preen and Marsh, Response of dugongs.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 242 Ben Daley, Peter Griggs and Helene Marsh increasing concerns about the conservation of marine wildlife species, commercial dugong fishing was prohibited in 1969 by a Queensland Order in Council. By that year, Lack stated, the dugong herds on the South Queensland coast had been almost wiped out, although scientific observations by Heinsohn et al. showed that large herds of dugongs were nonetheless found in Moreton Bay in 1978.55 Some Aboriginal missions in Queensland also earned income from dugong oil. The amount of dugong oil produced by Aboriginal labour is unknown, as the records kept by the Queensland Department of Community Services (then Queen- sland Department of Native Affairs) were not accessible to us. Accordingly, we have relied on an unpublished PhD thesis by Andrew Smith, who conducted research at Hope Vale community near Cape Bedford (Fig. 1).56 The report of the Chief Protector of Aborigines noted that in 1929 Hope Vale Mission augmented its food supplies by catching a large number of dugongs, from which 180 gallons of dugong oil were sent to market. All of the dugongs caught for oil by Hope Vale Mission were taken in the Starcke River area, about 70 km north of the Mission. The men were taken up by boat to the camps near the hunting ground for about six months each year from about 1928 to 1936. The dugongs were caught using harpoons from small wooden dinghies. Estimates of numbers taken are difficult to determine: one informant reported that about 200 dugongs were taken per year for the three to four years he was involved. The dugongs were butchered, boiled down to extract the oil (using a government-supplied extraction boiler), and the meat was then dried and sent back to the Mission for food. Smith concluded that dugongs were captured for oil until at least 1936, then perhaps intermittently until the community was evacuated in 1942 during the Second World War. The intensity of hunting during this period apparently varied considerably, being inversely related to the effort put into the other Mission-run marine industries (bêche-de-mer and trochus). The limited number of boats and experienced crew, as well as fluctuating market prices, largely controlled which industry was exploited.57 After the community was reestablished at Hope Vale after the war, plans were made in 1951 to revive the dugong oil industry.58 In 1953, 255 litres of dugong oil (from at least 14 dugongs) were collected and sold. These plans came to an abrupt end in 1953 when the Mission vessel sank. In 1955–56, irregular trips were made to the hunting grounds. In one month in 1955, informants reported that approximately 150 dugongs were taken for oil and meat, but generally only irregular trips were made taking three or four dugongs per trip. No one interviewed at Hope Vale in the 1980s by Smith could recall any hunting having occurred between 1956 and 1960. The early 1960s saw another attempt to revive the oil industry

55 Heinsohn et al., Discovery of a large population of dugongs; Lack, Dugong ﬁshing, p. 5; QDPI, Annual Report, 1968–69,p.36. 56 Smith, Ethnobiological study. 57 See the annual report by J. K. Bleakley, Director of the Queensland Department of Native Affairs, for 1929, published in QVP; Smith, Ethnobiological study. 58 See the annual reports of C. O’Leary, Director of the Queensland Department of Native Affairs for the years 1951, 1952, 1954, and 1956, published in QPP.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 Exploiting marine wildlife in Queensland 243 when a Hope Vale resident built an 11-metre boat. As well as being used for other fishing activities, its three dinghies were used to hunt dugongs for oil and also meat (occasionally taken to the Mission by truck). In one month in 1961 or 1962, about 120 dugongs were taken for oil and meat. Outboard motors and rifles were introduced from the mid to late 1960s. Initially, rifles were used to kill the dugong after harpooning, although occasionally dugongs were shot without harpooning. This method was unsatisfactory as the shot animals sank and were lost. Initially, outboard motors were used only to get to the hunting area; the boats were powered by oars for the actual hunt, but eventually motors were used throughout. Informants estimated that only about five dugongs per year were taken during this period, primarily for meat. In 1968–69, requests were made for specific amounts of dugong oil to be supplied to a Cairns laboratory by the State Government, but those orders were not fulfilled and dugong hunting reverted to subsistence, cer- emonial and recreational activity for the community.59 In general, for most of the period of European settlement, commercial dugong fishing remained a small industry that operated intermittently in response to a limited market for dugong oil.60 By reason of the low reproductive rate of the species, however, even a relatively small dugong fishery apparently caused a decline in dugong numbers and contributed to the reported scarcity of the animals. Our evidence indicates that the commercial dugong fishery probably had a significant negative impact on dugong numbers, and a severe impact on localised dugong populations. Large harvests of the animals, especially between the 1930s and 1969, probably increased the vulnerability of dugongs in Queensland to subsequent impacts.61

COMMERCIAL MARINE TURTLE FISHING IN QUEENSLAND, 1867–1962 Of the seven extant species of marine turtle, six occur in Queensland coastal waters: green (Chelonia mydas), hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata), loggerhead (Caretta caretta), flatback (Natator depressus), olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea), and leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) turtles. All are defined by the IUCN as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable, as shown in Table 1. By reason of many natural and anthropogenic pressures – including predation of nests by feral foxes and pigs, incidental catches in fishing and shark control nets, ingestion of litter, boat strikes, Indigenous hunting, habitat destruction and tourism – declines in many marine turtle populations have been documented. Marine turtles are vulnerable to such impacts as a result of their life histories, which are characterised by very high natural mortality of hatchlings and of small

59 Smith, Ethnobiological study. 60 Bertram and Ricardo, The dugong, p. 938; Promus, Netting dugong, pp. 40–1. 61 Marsh et al., Historical marine population estimates.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 244 ora oplto lcwl ulsigAi t t n h cnmcHsoySceyo Australia of Society History Economic the and Ltd Pty Asia Publishing Blackwell © compilation Journal

Table 1. The conservation status of the six marine turtle species in Queensland coastal waters, listing their status according to the criteria e ae,PtrGig n eeeMarsh Helene and Griggs Peter Daley, Ben used by the IUCN, and in Commonwealth and Queensland Government legislation

Common name Scientiﬁc name IUCN (World Conservation Commonwealth Environment Queensland Nature Union) Listing Protection and Biodiversity Act, Conservation (Wildlife) 1999 listing Regulation, 1994 listing

Loggerhead Caretta caretta Endangered Endangered Endangered Green Chelonia mydas Endangered Vulnerable Vulnerable Hawksbill Eretmochelys imbricata Critically endangered Vulnerable Vulnerable Flatback Natator depressus Vulnerable Vulnerable Vulnerable Olive Ridley Lepidochelys olivacea Endangered Endangered Endangered Leatherback Dermochelys coriacea Endangered Vulnerable Endangered

Source: Dobbs, Marine Turtles,p.5. n e eln 2008 Zealand New and 08TeAuthors The 2008 © Exploiting marine wildlife in Queensland 245 juvenile turtles, use of a limited number of nesting beaches, high fidelity to nesting sites and feeding grounds, limited interaction between genetic stocks, and long maturation periods. Mature female turtles come ashore at nesting sites on specific beaches to lay several large clutches of eggs in a single nesting season – a life history that requires high survivorship of adults to be successful. The commercial turtle fisheries impacted disproportionately on female turtles at this critical life stage. Given the long-lived, slow-maturing nature of marine turtles, commercial fishing probably exceeded the sustainable harvests of green and hawksbill turtles. However, the actual magnitude of the effect on marine turtles is unlikely to be apparent until decades later. In addition, the long-distance movements of individual turtles make changes in marine turtle populations difficult to monitor.62 The exploitation of at least two marine turtle species (green and hawksbill turtles) by Europeans has occurred in Queensland waters since the earliest Euro- pean exploration. Green turtles were caught as a source of fresh meat by the crews of vessels since the Endeavour, which first mapped the coast of eastern Australia in the 1770s. By the mid-nineteenth century, the hawksbill turtle was recognised as a potentially valuable source of tortoise-shell.63 The commercial marine turtle fishery in Queensland commenced in 1871 when 20 lbs of tortoise-shell were exported to Great Britain. Exports from that year until 1938 are shown in Figure 7, which shows that production was small in scale until around 1893. The tortoise-shell industry used the thick scales that were taken from the carapace of the hawksbill turtle, which formed an ideal export commodity as they could easily be dried and stored. Saville-Kent reported that small quantities of an inferior tortoise-shell were also obtained from green turtles. Tortoise-shell production operated alongside bêche-de-mer, pearl-shell, and oyster fishing, with the same crews and vessels sometimes being engaged in more than one fishery.64 Tortoise- shell production was concentrated in the northern Great Barrier Reef where the hawksbill turtle was abundant.65 Saville-Kent stated that by 1889, the trade in tortoise-shell had reached a total value of £1,705, and the average annual value of tortoise-shell exported from Queensland between 1883 and 1993 exceeded £400.66 Very large quantities of tortoise-shell were exported from Queensland during the 1890s and 1900s, and rapid expansion of the industry had occurred by 1897, as shown by the increase in the number of tortoise-shelling vessels registered in Queensland between 1895 and 1897 (Fig. 8). In 1900, Bennett stated that tortoise-shell ‘is so valuable that shell-turtle is captured, when possible, by anyone who sees it, and has the means of attacking it – that is a boat and a spear.’67 Hence, as early as 1900, the hawksbill

62 Dobbs, Marine Turtles; Limpus, Marine turtles, pp. 256–8. 63 Limpus, Marine turtles, pp. 256–8. 64 Bennett, Annual report, 1898, p. 1048; Saville-Kent (1890), Bêche-de-mer and pearl-shell ﬁsheries, p. 733; Saville-Kent, Great Barrier Reef, p. 322. 65 Campbell, Report on the oyster ﬁsheries of Moreton Bay, p. 123. 66 Saville-Kent, Great Barrier Reef, p. 322. 67 Bennett, Annual report, 1898’ p. 1048; Bennett, Annual report, 1900, p. 1319.

Exports of tortoise-shell from Queensland, 1871-1938

6000

5000

4000

3000

2000

1000 Quantity of tortoise-shell (lb) 0 1871 1876 1881 1886 1891 1896 1901 1906 1911 1916 1921 1926 1931 1936 Year

Figure 7. Exports of tortoise-shell from Queensland, 1871–1938. Source: Compiled from data published in the Annual Reports of the QDHM, 1895–1938, QVP, 1896–1900; QPP, 1901–39; SCQ , 1871–1900; and SSQ , 1901–03. The statistics given in the Annual Reports of the QDHM were sometimes inconsistent with those published in the SCQ and the SSQ ; where a discrepancy occurred, the data from the Annual Reports were used, as that time series spanned a longer period and those statistics were presented in a more consistent form. The statistics found in SCQ and SSQ present some values in imperial pounds and others in ‘packages’; cf. SSQ , 1901, p. 234 and SSQ , 1902, p. 214. turtle had been heavily exploited and doubts had been expressed about the sustainability of the fishery. In 1901, the quantity of tortoise-shell exported from Queensland reached 5,579 lbs. Data for the next year showed that tortoise-shell was shipped to New South Wales, Hong Kong, Ceylon, and Germany in addition to Britain.68 In 1908, further concerns were expressed about the exploitation of hawksbill turtles during the inquiry of the Royal Commission enquiry into the pearl-shell and bêche-de-mer industries. Herbert Bowden, a pearl-sheller and merchant, acknowledged ‘the present criminal action of men slaughtering turtle in the way they are doing’, and he stated: ‘There is an enormous market for the turtle-shell itself. Hawksbill turtle is slaughtered wholesale for it’. However, the Royal Com- mission also heard evidence that the tortoise-shell industry had experienced a recent decline because of low prices for the product.69 The declining profitability of the industry resulted in a contraction in fishing effort after 1897, a reduction in tortoise-shell vessels registered in Queensland from 1897–1904, and an associated decline in tortoise-shell exports from Queensland after 1908 (Fig. 7).

68 See the export statistics published in SCQ, 1875–1900; and in SSQ, 1901–02. 69 Mackay et al., Report, pp. 129 and 197.

Numbers of tortoise-shelling vessels registered in Queensland, 1895-1906 45 40 35 30

vessels 25 of 20 15

Number 10 5 0 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 Year

Figure 8. Numbers of tortoise-shelling vessels registered in Queensland, 1895–1906. Source: Compiled from data published in the Annual Reports of the QDHM, 1895–1938, QVP, 1896–1900; QPP, 1901–39; SCQ , 1871–1900; and SSQ , 1901–03.

Changes in fishing practices may also have occurred in the industry after 1897, however, as the initial reduction in the number of vessels registered was not immediately associated with a decline in tortoise-shell exports. Instead, the industry may have become less specialised and hawksbill turtles were probably harvested in an opportunistic manner by the crews of vessels engaged in other fisheries, such as the bêche-de-mer fishery. New markets for tortoise-shell were found in Japan and the United States of America, although Britain remained the main destination for the product, and a small quantity of tortoise-shell was also exported to New South Wales.70 Nonetheless, the price of tortoise-shell remained low and a sharp decline in the trade took place after 1908. Exports of tortoise- shell were particularly low during the years of the First World War. In 1915, J. R. Smith, Inspector of Fisheries, stated: ‘There is scarcely any demand for this shell at present’ and in 1917, the Queensland Inspector of Pearl-Shell Fisheries, R. Holmes, reported: ‘The trade in connection with tortoiseshell has declined to such an extent that it is now a negligible quantity so far as the industry is concerned.’71 A small revival of the tortoise-shell industry occurred after the First World War, which persisted until the outbreak of the Second World War. By June 1929, the value of tortoise-shell exports was £1,643, and Barrett wrote that in some years the annual revenue of the industry reached £2,000 or £3,000.72 Exports of tortoise-shell continued until at least 1938; production statistics from the QDHM

70 The destinations for the product are listed in SSQ, 1916–24. 71 Holmes, Annual report, 1918, p. 1668; Smith, Annual report, 1916, p. 1666. 72 Barrett, Australia’s Coral Realm, pp. 40–1.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 248 Ben Daley, Peter Griggs and Helene Marsh indicate that a total of 17 cwt of ‘turtle-shell’ was produced during 1933–38.73 However, the trade was never again resumed in Queensland on a scale compa- rable to that of the period before 1908. In the 1950s, synthetic materials replaced the use of tortoise-shell and the market for the natural product collapsed. Yet the evidence presented above indicates that by 1938 at least 86,020 lb (over 38 tons) of tortoise-shell had been exported from Queensland. As a result of the scale of this fishing effort, the tortoise-shell industry had a significant impact on hawksbill turtle populations in northern Queensland waters, particularly because an incen- tive existed to harvest larger animals that yielded greater quantities of shell and were more easily captured near traditional breeding sites, and because of the low rates of growth and advancement to adulthood that characterise the species.74 Besides tortoise-shell production, commercial fishing of marine turtles in Queensland occurred between 1867 and 1962 for the production of turtle meat and soup. Green turtles were exploited in the Great Barrier Reef and in Torres Strait. The emergence of two centres in the commercial fishery reflects the fact that two genetic stocks of green turtle exist, nesting in the Capricorn-Bunker Group, and at Bramble and Pandora Cays. The industry operated intermittently between 1867 and 1962, as substantial documentary and oral history evidence attests. Export statistics published in the SCQ suggest that the export of whole turtles from Queensland commenced in 1867. Another report, of 1872, described a large harvest of 122 green turtles at Lake Creek, near Rockhampton, by one or two turtle-fishing boats.75 Exports of turtles from Queensland since 1867 are shown in Fig. 9. By 1896, a substantial turtle meat and soup industry had been established in the Moreton Bay area, where the animals were reported to be ‘most plentiful in the summer months’.76 A report by F. T. Campbell stated:

[Green turtles] are caught in nets of a large mesh, and are mostly used in Brisbane at the hotels, and also preserved in tins as soup by Skinner of the Valley and other meat preservers. They are most common in the southern parts of the Bay, such as Russell Island, Swan Bay, and Broadwater, where a couple of men working industriously may take eight or ten per week. They are of large size and sometimes weigh 5 cwt.77

In the same year, Saville-Kent indicated that preserved turtle meat was sought for the Chinese and other markets. In addition, Fison stated that Peter Tuska had carried out a turtle-ﬁshing operation in the Central-Moreton districts, where the supply of turtle meat was found to be ‘sufﬁcient for the moderate demand of the

73 Annual reports of the Queensland Fish Board; Fison, Annual report, 1935, p. 1104; Fison, Annual report, 1936, p. 1155; Fison, Annual report, 1937, p. 1414; Fison, Annual report, 1938, p. 1295. 74 Limpus, Marine turtles, p. 256. 75 SPCK, Australia,p.254;The Rockhampton Bulletin, 7 January 1872, cited in Pugh’s Almanac, 1872; SCQ, 1870–1900; SSQ, 1901–02. 76 Fison, Annual report, 1896, p. 835; 77 Campbell, Report on the oyster ﬁsheries of Moreton Bay, p. 123.

Numbers of turtles exported from Queensland, 1867-1902

600

500

400

300

200 Number of turtles

100

0 1873 1888 1870 1879 1882 1885 1891 1894 1897 1867 1876 1900 Year

Figure 9. Exports of turtles from Queensland, 1867–1902. Source: Compiled from data published in SCQ , 1870–1900; and SSQ , 1901–02.

Brisbane Preserving Works’.78 In an account of his travels in Australasia, Michael Davitt reported that green turtles were ‘cheap owing to their numbers’, and that it was customary for drinking salons in the coastal towns to have turtle soup ‘on tap’.79 By 1899, Fison reported, green turtles were still ‘in fair supply when required’ and, the following year, James H. Stevens, the then Inspector of Fisheries, stated that a ‘good supply of turtle can nearly always be obtained when required’.80 In 1900 and 1901, the turtle industry expanded, in response to the introduction of refrigeration facilities, which facilitated the export of frozen turtle meat to London and Vancouver.81 The Brisbane Fish Agency Company alone handled 70 green turtles in one year, obtaining £70 for those animals. Over the following two years, orders for turtles were easily met by that company – 53 animals being ordered in a single year – and 14,766 lbs of frozen turtle meat, in addition to 142 green turtles, were exported from Queensland. Moreover, the animals were reported to occur in large numbers in the Moreton Bay area, despite the

78 Fison, Annual report, 1897, p. 637. 79 Davitt, Life and Progress in Australasia, pp. 261–2. 80 Saville-Kent (1890), Bêche-de-mer and pearl-shell ﬁsheries, p. 733; Fison, Annual report, 1899, p. 1040; Stevens, Annual report, 1900, p. 998. 81 Stevens, Annual report, 1901, p. 1325.

Figure 10. The capture of green turtles at Masthead Island, 1900s. Source: Negative No. AP3:470, Robert Etheridge Collection, Photograph Archives, Australian Museum. increasing harvest.82 During the first decade of the twentieth century, more extensive exploitation of green turtles was prompted by the increasing demand in London for turtle products. In 1906, the Inspector of Fisheries acknowledged ‘the valuable but as yet undeveloped trade in turtle’ and the shipment of sun-dried turtle meat between Queensland and London.83 Another author, Holmes, stated: ‘One year several hundred [green] turtles were exported shell and all to the London market, and I believe they were a feature of the Lord Mayor’s banquet’.84 During this decade, green turtles were also harvested from Masthead Island, in the Capricorn-Bunker Group, as shown in Figures 10 and 11. By the time of the Royal Commission enquiry into the pearl-shell and bêche- de-mer industries in 1908, commercial turtle meat and soup production was regarded as a promising industry. Bowden, the pearl-sheller and merchant, reported that turtle fishing could occur profitably alongside pearl-shelling, although insufficient knowledge of curing methods could cause the turtle meat to reach its destination in a poor condition.85 Nevertheless, Bowden reported that he had invested significantly in the industry. In addition, a merchant, Mackenzie,

82 SSQ (1901, p. 219 and 226); SSQ (1902, pp. 196 and 205); Stevens, Annual report, 1901, p. 1325; Stevens, Annual report, 1902, p. 967. 83 Stevens, Annual report, 1906, p. 1419. 84 Cited in Limpus, The Reef: uncertain land of plenty, p. 220. 85 Mackay et al., Report, p. 197.

Figure 11. Loading a green turtle onto a boat using a winch, near Masthead Island, 1900s. Source: Negative No. AP3:469, Robert Etheridge Collection, Photograph Archives, Australian Museum. stated that he caught turtles and exported their shells, calipee (ﬂippers), calipash (breast meat), and fat to London; the latter substance was used in soap manufacture. Mackenzie indicated that the problem of preserving the turtle meat had been overcome by keeping the animals alive on the decks of the ships. He reported that a turtle-tinning factory was operating at Rockhampton and that a canning works was run by Skinner in Brisbane, but he stated that the turtles he exported were obtained from Torres Strait rather than from the southern ﬁshing grounds.86

86 Mackay et al., Report, pp. 128–9.

Figure 12. The wharf and rail track at North West Island, showing the M.V. Ethelbert, c.1924. Source: Golding, Beyond Horizons, facing p. 54.

More systematic turtle harvesting, based on nesting turtles, commenced in the Capricorn-Bunker Group in 1904 when Thomas Owens established a turtle factory on North West Island.87 His wife, Sarah Owens, wrote: ‘To make one ton of extract it takes 440 turtles at 12 a day or 36 days; 100 cases of soup takes 228 turtles at 8 cases a day or 36 days.’88 Merchants in London reported that the demand for that turtle soup was unreliable, however, and in 1911, Stevens reported that there was little demand for turtles beyond the Sydney market, a situation that prevailed throughout the following decade in spite of an apparent abundance of turtles in the waters of Queensland. In 1919, Stevens acknowledged that ‘only a few’ turtles were harvested as a result of insufﬁcient demand.89 Turtle-soup production at North West Island increased during the 1920s and by May 1924, the Barrier Reef Trading Company had constructed a canning works there, including the wharf and rail track shown in Figure 12.90 The scale of that operation was unprecedented in the Great Barrier Reef. During 1924–25, 1,220 turtles were processed at North West Island and the annual output of the factory

87 Golding, Beyond Horizons, pp. 48–9; Limpus, The Reef: uncertain land of plenty, pp. 220–1. 88 Extracts of 1913 correspondence in relation to Owens, North West Island turtle factory, Mrs P. Land, Brisbane, cited in Limpus, The Reef: uncertain land of plenty, p. 221; Golding, Beyond Horizons, pp. 50–1. 89 Stevens, Annual report, 1910, p. 927; Stevens, Annual report, 1911, p. 1192; Stevens, Annual report, 1913, p. 1033; Stevens, Annual report, 1919, p. 342; Stevens, Annual report, 1920, p. 570. 90 Golding, Beyond Horizons,p.51.

Figure 13. Turtle butchers removing the eggs from the carapace of a green turtle. Source: Napier, On the Barrier Reef, facing p. 136. was approximately 36,000 tins.91 In 1925, the Australian Turtle Company Limited commenced another operation at Heron Island, and in 1925–26, the combined harvest of the two factories was 2,500 green turtles.92 The industry was intensive. A daily catch of about 25 female turtles yielded around 900 tins of turtle soup, with most of the harvest occurring in the nesting season from November to January. In addition to soup, tortoise-shell was sold, turtle shells and bones were used for the production of fertiliser, and turtle eggs were sold to biscuit manufacturers (Fig. 13).93 In 1925, Forrester reported that regulation of the industry was necessary, and in 1926, Musgrave and Whitley expressed concerns that the excessive harvest of nesting female green turtles at the two islands threatened the species with extinction.94 During 1926 and 1927, 2,475 turtles were taken, and 1,622 the following year. Figure 14 indicates the large

91 Barrett, The Great Barrier Reef, p. 375; Forrester, Annual report, 1925, p. 295; see also Papers of Isobel Bennett, Box 6 Folder 10, Manuscript Collection, NLA. 92 Forrester, Annual report, 1926, p. 929; Golding, Beyond Horizons, pp. 61–2; see also Commis- sioner of Police to Under-Secretary, Queensland Home Department, Brisbane, 11 March 1925, Queensland Police Department, Commissioner’s Ofﬁce, Miscellaneous correspondence and reports, PRV10729/1 Box 169, Correspondence and reports – Inquiries re. turtles in Queensland, QSA. 93 Musgrave and Whitley, From sea to soup, p. 336; QGTB, The Great Barrier Coral Reef,p.14; Roughley, Wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, p. 254. 94 Forrester, ‘Annual report, 1926’, p. 929; Musgrave and Whitley, ‘From sea to soup’, p. 336; see also Roughley, Wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, pp. 254–5.

Number of turtles taken in the Capricorn-Bunker Group, 1925-49

3000

2500

2000

1500

1000 Number of turtles 500

0 1925 1927 1929 1931 1933 1935 1937 1939 1941 1943 1945 1947 1949 Year

Figure 14. Numbers of green turtles harvested in the Capricorn-Bunker Group, 1925–49. Source: Compiled from data published in the Annual Reports of the QDHM, QPP, 1926–50. catches made between 1925 and 1928, when the equivalent of 136,000 12-ounce tins of turtle soup were produced at North West Island; at least 33,000 tins of (more diluted?) soup were produced from 435 turtles during 1926–29 at Heron Island.95 In addition to those catches, Barrett stated in 1930 that turtles were found in abundance at Masthead Island. Green turtles were also taken from that island for the manufacture of turtle soup.96 By 1929, green turtle catches in the Capricorn-Bunker Group had declined markedly. Several factors explain this contraction of the industry. First, as Limpus noted, a shortage of reliable freshwater supplies on the cays hindered the boiling- down of the animals. Other authors also acknowledged the problem of inadequate freshwater supplies, including the fact that Pisonia leaves contaminated the tanks at Heron Island, resulting in brackish water supplies.97 Second, the quality of the tinned product was poor. J. Huxham, the Queensland Agent-General, reported the 12-ounce tins were too small, the consistency of the soup too thin, the content of green meat too low, and the packaging too drab, he argued, for the London market. Third, the factory at North West Island was described as ‘a somewhat ramshackle affair’, and legal and ﬁnancial difﬁculties hindered the operation of the Barrier Reef Trading Company. Fourth, F. W. Moorhouse of the Great

95 Forrester, Annual report, 1927, p. 953; Forrester, Annual report, 1928, p. 1185; Forrester, Annual report, 1929, p. 953; Roughley, Wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, pp. 253–4; Dick, Annual report, 1930, p. 39. 96 Barrett, The Great Barrier Reef, pp. 374–5. 97 Golding, Beyond Horizons, p. 62; Limpus, The Reef: uncertain land of plenty, p. 220; Musgrave and Whitley, From sea to soup, p. 336.

Barrier Reef Committee reported that turtles had become scarce in the waters around Heron Island as a result of unsustainable fishing practices, including the capture of female turtles before they had laid their eggs. Fifth, and perhaps most important, as Limpus et al. observed, large natural variations occur in the proportions of green turtle populations nesting in any one year.98 Consequently, the 1929–30 turtle-canning operation was not completed. By 1932, the factories on both cays had closed and, during 1934 and 1935, the Heron Island factory was converted into a tourist resort.99 On 15 December 1932, in response to calls for the protection of turtles at Heron Island, the Queensland Government prohibited turtle fishing during the months of October and November in waters to the south of latitude 17°S (above this latitude, turtles were found to breed as late as May, so were not deemed to require legal protection). Turtle fishing continued elsewhere, however, and at other times of the year.100 Commercial turtle fishing continued around Gladstone to supply turtle soup and frozen turtle meat to the Brisbane and overseas markets. Green turtles were also captured at North West Island and transported alive via the Fitzroy River to the Lakes Creek Meatworks, in Rockhampton, to supply green turtle meat to the Central Queensland Meat Export Company Limited. That turtle-fishing operation is shown in Figure 15.101 The market for turtle soup and frozen and sun-dried turtle meat was supplied by two companies: Great Barrier Reef Fisheries Limited and Queensland Marine Industries Limited. An advertisement for the latter company is reproduced in Figure 16. Turtle fishing continued throughout the 1930s, but by the end of that decade, the industry had declined in the Gladstone area and had become concentrated at the nesting site on Bramble Cay, in Torres Strait. During the year 1935–36, Dick reported that 73 turtles were caught from the islands near Gladstone and in Torres Strait. In 1937–38, he stated that turtle fishing was confined to Torres Strait, where 30 turtles were harvested.102 Production statistics from QDHM indicate that more than 18 tons of shell-meat was produced during 1933–38. During the 1940s, in contrast to the relatively small catches of turtles in the Capricorn-Bunker Group shown in Figure 13, more extensive catches were made in Torres Strait, bringing the total harvest of turtles, as reported by the Queensland Fish Board for the period 1938–52, to 492 animals. Catch rates, however, were highly variable, as the Annual Reports of the Queensland Fish Board demonstrate.103

98 Limpus et al., The green turtle; see also Dobbs, Marine Turtles,p.8. 99 Huxham, Annual report, 1925, p. 15; Huxham, Annual report, 1928, p. 678; Moorhouse, Notes on the green turtle, p. 20; Napier, On the Barrier Reef,p.91. 100 Roughley, Wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, p. 255. 101 Dick, ‘Annual report, 1932’, p. 6; Golding, Beyond Horizons, p. 56; Roughley, Wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, pp. 253–4. 102 Benham, Diver’s Luck, facing p. 130; Dick, Annual report, 1936, p. 1142; Dick, Annual report, 1938, p. 1283. 103 Annual reports of the Queensland Fish Board; Fison, Annual report, 1935, p. 1104; Fison, Annual report, 1936, p. 1155; Fison, Annual report, 1937, p. 1414; Fison, Annual report, 1938, p. 1295.

Figure 15. A turtle-ﬁshing party on the Fitzroy River, c.1930. Source: Negative No. 13994, Historical Photographs Collection, John Oxley Library. Additional pho- tographic evidence of turtle ﬁshing, including the sale of animals at Brisbane markets in 1934, exists in the John Oxley Library; see Negative Nos. 21319, 158369 and 106337, Historical Photographs Collection, John Oxley Library.

Several Indigenous commercial turtle-ﬁshing operations ran between 1940 and 1962 at Bramble Cay and in the Palm Island Group. The Genami Gia Turtle Fishing enterprise that used a turtle trap in the Halifax area was managed by the Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement.104 The turtle-ﬁshing crew of the Wanderlust, based at Palm Island, carried on a larger operation. Their catches between

104 See SRS505/1 Box 520 Item 3625, QSA.

Figure 16. An advertisement for the turtle industry, 1932. Source: Queensland Marine Industries Ltd, Sharks and Turtles for Proﬁt,p.12.

November 1940 and March 1941, listed in Table 2, show that 6,652 lbs of turtle meat without bone and 939 lbs of turtle ﬂippers were produced, in addition to some dugong meat. At Bramble Cay, the large-scale exploitation of green turtles was reported in 1953 by A. Mellor, Master of the Melbidir, who stated: ‘it is nothing for each of the four boats to load 50 or 60 turtles during the night’. Mellor

Table 2. Summary of turtle catches by the crew of the Wanderlust, 18 November 1940–29 March 1941

Trip Catch Value (£. s.d.)

18–22 November 1940 813 lbs turtle meat without bone 13.11.0 155 lbs flippers 1.12.3 25 November–2 December 1940 208 lbs turtle meat without bone 3.9.4 28 lbs flippers 5.10 3–6 December 1940 746 lbs turtle meat without bone 12.8.8 89 lbs flippers 18.7 9–13 December 1940 929 lbs turtle meat without bone 15.9.8 187 lbs flippers 1.18.11 1 15–20 December 1940 240 /2 lbs dugong without bone 4.0.1 502 lbs turtle meat without bone 8.7.4 61 lbs flippers 12.9 12–15 January 1941 367 lbs turtle meat without bone 6.2.4 55 lbs flippers 11.5 19–28 January 1941 178 lbs turtle meat without bone 2.19.4 46 lbs flippers 9.7 30 January–6 February 1941 57 lbs turtle meat without bone 19.0 14 lbs flippers 2.11 7–13 February 1941 846 lbs turtle meat without bone 14.2.0 1 51 lbs flippers 10.7 /2 17–22 February 1941 709 lbs turtle meat without bone 11.16.4 1 61 lbs flippers 12.8 /2 24 February–1 March 1941 484 lbs turtle meat without bone 8.1.4 1 121 lbs flippers 1.5.2 /2 10–15 March 1941 282 lbs turtle meat without bone 4.14.0 71 lbs flippers 14.9 24–29 March 1941 531 lbs turtle meat without bone 8.17.0 Total 6,652 lbs turtle meat without bone 124.12.11 939 lbs flippers

Source: Compiled from data provided in the Reports of the Acting Superintendent, Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement, State of Receipts, Expenditure and Earnings of Wanderlust Turtle Fishing Crew, SRS505/1 Box 520 Item 3625, QSA. also reported seeing ‘as many as ten full sized turtles dead on the Cay, where crews have turned them on their backs from previous raids and departed loaded’.105 Other accounts of considerable destruction to turtles by commercial ﬁshers were published in 1950. F. A. McNeill, the Curator in Invertebrates at the Australian Museum, wrote to the Honorary Secretary of the Great Barrier Reef Committee about the exploitation of green turtle numbers. McNeill stated that 16 to 18 green turtles were transported from Gladstone to Brisbane each week during the egg-laying season. He emphasised the disproportionate impact on female green turtles, the inadequate recovery time between each ‘period of butchering’,

105 A. Mellor, Master, QGPV ‘Melbidir’, Thursday Island to Mr C. O’Leary, Director of Native Affairs, Thursday Island, 22 December 1953, RSI5058/1 Item 1346, QSA.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 Exploiting marine wildlife in Queensland 259 the lack of enforcement of fishery regulations, and the ‘conspicuous numerical dominance of males over females in the initial mating season’. Similar sentiments were expressed by the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau (QGTB), reflecting the concerns of many tourists about the destruction of green turtles and the cruelty of the methods used in the industry.106 On 7 September 1950, in an attempt to halt the destruction of green turtles, an Order in Council prohibited the removal of green turtles or their eggs from Queensland waters and foreshores.107 Thus, the commercial green turtle fisheries that had operated for almost five decades in the southern Great Barrier Reef ceased. However, Limpus et al. documented a brief revival in the industry in the northern Great Barrier Reef because of successful lobbying by commercial fishers. Earlier legislation was repealed and new Order in Council was passed on 4 September 1958 allowing the capture of green turtles in Queensland waters north of 15°S. Commercial fishing recommenced and approximately 1,200 green turtles were caught in January and February of 1959 by the crew of the Trader Horn, although that harvest was not repeated because of doubts about the profitability of the enterprise. This final episode of commercial turtle fishing ended when all of Queensland’s turtle species were designated as protected under the Queensland Fisheries Act by an Order in Council of 18 July 1968.108 Limpus has emphasised that green turtles – particularly older animals – are faithful to their migration patterns and to localised feeding grounds, with the result that turtle populations are highly vulnerable to overfishing. He also referred to anecdotal reports of the increasing scarcity of green turtles in the Great Barrier Reef.109 Limpus and Nicholls have also acknowledged, however, that apparent declines in turtle nesting numbers may also be attributed to natural variations, including El Niño-Southern Oscillation events.110 Our evidence indicates that intensive harvests of green turtles took place in Queensland for about a century, with thousands of animals – predominantly females – being caught for the production of turtle meat and soup. In 1999, the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service (QNPWS) reported that the population of green turtles in the Capricorn-Bunker Group displayed ‘some characteristics consistent with excessive loss of adult turtles from the population’ – a loss that may be partly attributed to the impact of the commercial turtle fishery.111

106 F. A. McNeill, Curator in Invertebrates, Australian Museum, Sydney to Honorary Secretary, Great Barrier Reef Committee, Brisbane, 3 March 1950, RSI920/1 Item 9, General correspondence batches – General Tourist Bureau matters, QSA, pp. 1–4. Numerous complaints by tourists about the destruction of, and cruelty to, green turtles have been documented; see Daley, Changes in the Great Barrier Reef, pp. 407–15. 107 Director, QGTB, Brisbane to Under-Secretary, QDHM, Brisbane, 16 March 1950, RSI920/1 Item 9, QSA. 108 Limpus et al., The green turtle, pp. 366–70. 109 Limpus, The green turtle, p. 7; Limpus, The Reef: uncertain land of plenty, pp. 219–20. 110 Limpus and Nicholls, ENSO regulation. 111 QNPWS, Capricornia Cays National Park,p.6.

CONCLUSION Commercial dugong and marine turtle fisheries played a distinct, although limited, role in the economic development of Queensland, and those industries occurred on a basis that was largely unsustainable. Our analysis of documentary and oral history evidence indicates that significant commercial fishing of dugongs and marine turtles occurred in Queensland waters; those fisheries used diverse methods and operated with insufficient, if any, regulation and scientific monitoring – at least in their earliest periods.112 Consequently, in combination with a range of other activities, commercial fishing had considerable impact on some species – in particular, on dugongs, green turtles, and hawksbill turtles – that persisted for many decades. Although the commercial fisheries were sporadic, some periods of intensive harvesting occurred and localised depletions of dugongs, green turtles, and hawksbill turtles were reported. Our evidence suggests that the commercial exploitation of dugongs and marine turtles in Queensland waters was more extensive than was previously supposed and has probably increased the vulnerability of those species to a range of modern pressures.113 In particular, we have demonstrated the intensiveness with which such industries can operate in the absence of effective regulation and adequate marine protected areas. Since the formation of the GBRMP in 1975, scientific knowledge of dugongs and marine turtles has greatly improved, enabling this historical account to be placed in a broader context. Heinsohn et al. indicated that a resident population of at least 300 dugongs remained in Moreton Bay in the 1970s and they suggested that significant migrations of dugongs occur between feeding areas.114 More recently, Chilvers et al. described the existence of large populations of marine mammals, including dugongs, in Moreton Bay, adjacent to highly developed coastal environments and in spite of the historical exploitation of the animals.115 Those accounts suggest that caution is required in reconstructing the effects of the impact of the commercial dugong fisheries because the effects of over-exploitation may have been confounded by those of the large-scale movements of the animals.116 This confounding would account for the scarcity of dugongs reported in the historical literature at some locations, in some years, and for the (biologically impossible) apparent rapid recovery of the population. In particular, fluctuations in dugong numbers observed in Moreton Bay may be attributed to dugongs moving in response to changes in their food supplies and exploitation.117 Similarly, caution is required in reconstructing historical marine turtle populations because

112 The creation of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has been described by Bowen and Bowen, Great Barrier Reef ; a general account of the origins of National Parks in Queensland has been provided by Frost, Tourism, rainforests and worthless lands. 113 Bellwood et al., Confronting the coral reef crisis; Wachenfeld et al., State of the GBRWHA, pp. 2–3. 114 Heinsohn et al., Discovery of a large population of dugongs, p. 91. 115 Chilvers et al., Moreton Bay, Queensland, p. 568. 116 Chilvers et al., Diving behaviour of dugongs; Marsh et al., Aerial surveys; Marsh et al., Historical marine population estimates, Preen and Marsh, Response of dugongs; Sheppard et al., Movement heterogeneity; Sheppard et al., Seagrass as pasture; p. 487. 117 Marsh et al., Aerial surveys, pp. 441–2.

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2008 Exploiting marine wildlife in Queensland 261 of the absence of census data, the difficulties in evaluating the situation at localised feeding grounds when animals undertake extensive movements, the heterogeneity of stocks in feeding areas, the long and poorly known life history of some species, the large inter-annual differences in the proportions of females making breeding migrations and nesting, and the long migrations made by individual animals.118 Reconstructions of historical marine wildlife species populations based only on secondary documentary sources, typified by Jackson et al. and Pandolfi et al., are problematic.119 Marsh et al.’s study of the assumptions on which such reconstructions were based concluded that while such estimates are valuable as triggers for conservation, they are unrealistic as targets for the recovery of vulnerable populations.120 Inadequate catch records mean that the accurate reconstruction of the abundance of marine animals is impossible using historical sources. Instead, historical population sizes must be estimated in the light of modern ecological knowledge of the species and their habitats. For instance, better scientific understanding of the diving behaviour of dugongs now informs more accurate aerial survey estimates of their abundance and suggests that the response of marine wildlife species to anthropogenic and natural pressures may be complex.121 Further scientific research and monitoring, linked with agreed performance indicators, is now vital for understanding local changes in the abundance of dugongs and marine turtles, and to underpin their conservation. Although the commercial fisheries have now ceased, human impact on dugongs and marine turtles in Queensland waters continues to require long-term, effective management to reduce the mortality of the animals and the degradation of their habitats.122

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