Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Cairns Historical Society Image Library, Cairns Historical Society, Cairns
There are no
trepang
fisheries like those of the Barrier Reef, where are found
the
bêches-de-mer
[
sic
], which is neither a fish nor a slug, but an echinoderm.
[…] Indifferently called sea-slugs,
trepangs
,
bêches-de-mer
, teat fish, or sea
cucumbers, they are prized by the Chinese, who will pay as much £160 a ton
for this beloved delicacy.
However, other authors acknowledged that the industry was declining. Suggate
(1940, p157) stated that the 'quantities of
bêche-de-mer
, obtained, like tortoiseshell,
from the coasts of Queensland and Northern Territory, seem to be declining', and he
stated that
bêche-de-mer
collection took place in conjunction with pearl-shelling. By
1940, only small
bêche-de-mer
operations continued, a
s Figure 5.2
shows, including
one fishery at Green Island. After that date, the fishery remained small although,
in 1955, Serventy (1955, p76) stated that 'as much as £300 per ton was paid for this
delicacy', and some
bêche-de-mer
fishing in the Great Barrier Reef has continued to
the present day. Overall, the evidence presented above suggests that, by the time of
the formation of the GBRMP, thousands of tons of
bêche-de-mer
had already been
removed from the Great Barrier Reef. Recent scientific monitoring of the species
has indicated that
bêche-de-mer
are now significantly depleted in the Great Barrier
Reef as a result of the commercial fisheries (Uthicke and Benzies, 2000; Skewes et
al., 2004; Uthicke, 2004; Uthicke et al., 2004).
The pearl-shell fishery
A detailed account of the Torres Strait pearl-shell industry has been provided by
Ganter (1994); yet, although Torres Strait was the centre of that industry, reefs in
the Great Barrier Reef were also exploited for pearl-shell (see Hedley, 1924). The
Queensland pearl-shell fishery was the first to operate in Australia; the earliest
pearl-shell raised in Queensland was taken from Warrior Reef, in Torres Strait,
in 1868. The fishery sought
Meleagrina margaritifera
, the common mother-of-
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