Impacts on marine turtles - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 89

farming had expanded at Coconut Island . 27 On 8 February 1973, the Australian
Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, wrote: 'Some sixty turtle farms have now
been established in North Queensland and three in Western Australia against
a planned total of seventy-eight for the current financial year' . 28 I n March 1973,
between 2,000 and 3,000 juvenile green turtles were sought from Bramble Cay to
supply the northernmost Western Islands in 1973.
Also in 1973, however, concerns about the conservation of the animals led
to an attempt to restructure the industry to ensure the sustainability of the wild
turtle populations that were being depleted in order to stock the farms. The
Queensland Minister for Primary Industries wrote to the Queensland Minister
for Conservation, Marine and Aboriginal Affairs, stating that the removal of
5,000 hawksbill turtles for the farms was acceptable, provided that at least 800
of the batch were released into the wild when they reached the age of one year . 29
By May 1973, over 20,000 turtles were being farmed on several of the Torres
Strait Islands, and a new requirement was introduced: that at least 10 per cent
of the farmed turtles should be released to the sea once they had attained a size
'adequate to ensure their safety from predators' . 30 Around that time, however,
problems that had previously been overlooked in the industry became apparent.
In particular, the statistics used to describe the scale of the industry were disputed;
claims that 100 turtle farmers held 29,000 turtles were found to be inaccurate, as
stocktaking found that around 19,000 turtles were held on the farms, suggesting
that the mortality of farm turtles had been extremely high, partly due to the
poor water quality and the cannibalism that was reported amongst turtles in
overcrowded pens. Following debate about the industry, the Senate concluded
that the schemes were inflicting excessive mortality on the animals - particularly
on the hawksbill turtle, which had become 'almost extinct in Australia '. 31
In November 1973, the turtle farming industry was completely reorganised in
response to the criticisms of the Senators. A report by the House of Representatives
Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation referred to the operation
of 112 cottage industry farms in Torres Strait, farming around 29,000 turtles; but
it acknowledged that a high mortality of turtle eggs and hatchlings had resulted
from the activities of poorly-trained farmers. The Committee stated:
The present system whereby Islanders establish themselves as turtle farmers
by collecting sufficient eggs from rookeries to obtain 150 hatchling turtles
appears to be causing harm to wild turtle populations. Some Islanders
harvesting eggs from wild rookeries have reported a hatchling result as low as
4 from 700 eggs. Of those which do hatch only about 20% can be expected
to surviv e. 32
Particular failings of the industry included the fact that no records of turtle eggs
removed - or of hatch rates - had been taken; turtle farmers were unsupervised
and tended to exploit rookeries throughout the nesting season; and the rate of
successful hatchling emergence in captivity was much lower than that found in