Impacts on dugongs - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 97

140ºE
10ºS

▲ Torres Strait (various islands)

GREAT

▲ Cape Bedford

Cooktown 5

BARRIER

Cairns 5
Innisfail 5

▲

Cardwell

Townsville 5
Bowen 5
Proserpine 5

REEF

Mackay 5

QUEENSLAND

▲

Repulse Bay

Rockhampton 5

Gladstone 5

▲

Rodds Bay

Bundaberg 5 g

Hervey Bay

▲

Dugong fishing operations

▲
▲
▲
▲

Wide Bay

Tin Cay Bay

0 KILOMETRES 500

140ºE
28ºS

155ºE
28ºS

Moreton Bay

Figure 7.1 Locations of individual dugong fisheries in Queensland, 1840-1970. Source:
Author

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
become entangled in the meshes, and on average about two are captured
every night.

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 (1860, p166) documented the oil yields from large
dugongs, stating: 'A full-grown animal yields from 10 to 12 gallons of oil. [...] Some