The impacts of coral and shell collecting - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 133

Bowen ,

▲

Stone Island

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Bait Reef

▲

Hayman Island

▲
▲
▲
▲

Molle Island

Whitsunday Island (Cid Harbour)

Lindeman Island

Shaw Island

Brampton Island

▲
▲

Mackay ,

▲ St Bees

Island

Scawfell Island

▲
▲

Tern Island

Red Bill Island

GREAT

▲
▲

Middle Island

South Island

BARRIER

QUEENSLAND

Rockhampton ,

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▲▲

North West Island

Masthead
Island

Heron Island

REEF

Gladstone ,

Early protected reefs

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▲ Lady Musgrave Island

0 KILOMETRES 100

Figure 9.2 The first coral reefs and foreshores protected by legislation, in 1933. Source:
Author, compiled from information provided in Order in Council, 1 June 1933

In contrast, Ratcliffe (1939, p139) described the disappointment he
experienced when walking across a dead coral reef between Dunk Island and
a smaller island of the Family Group, at low tide, and finding few biological
specimens. Yet the practice of coral collecting and the treatment of specimens
had by then become well-established; an efficient method of cleaning coral by
covering it in coral sand for about a week was commonly practised, and coral
specimens were then tinted in an attempt to reproduce the colours of the living
reef (Richards, 1937, p73).