The bêche-de-mer, pearl-shell and trochus fisheries - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 62

pearl, which occurred in two varieties of approximately equal abundance: the
gold-lipped oyster and the common oyster. Of those two varieties, the common
oyster, with a purer and more uniform nacrous lining, was the more valuable
(Mackay et al., 1908, p. xlvi). A smaller pearl-shell, the black-lipped variety,
was also found in Queensland waters as far south as Moreton Bay, but had not
been harvested commercially by 1890. This variety was also known as 'Black
Scotch', although uncertainty existed about its scientific name: M. radiatus , M.
fucatus and M. cummingii were used variously to describe it (Saville-Kent, 1890a,
p729). Pearl-shell became one of the most economically significant exports from
Queensland, and was used in the manufacture of buttons and ornaments; the
shell was exported to Europe and south-east Asia. While pearls were sometimes
taken with the shells, those were not the commercial object of the trade and were
usually kept by the divers (Saville-Kent, 1890a, p729; Glenne, 1938, p156).
The Queensland pearl-shell industry had its centre at Port Kennedy, on
Thursday Island, where boats and crew members were registered and licensed,
although pearling luggers worked shelling grounds in the Great Barrier Reef
(Saville-Kent, 1890c, p704). Like the bêche-de-mer and trochus fisheries, pearl-
shelling depended on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander divers before the
introduction of diving equipment in the 1880s. However, the industry operated
with little regulation and it was not until 1877 that production statistics became
available for the Queensland pearl-shell fisheries (NADC, 1946, p8). In that
year, Senior (1877, p311) wrote that pearl-shelling was 'a most thriving business'
that had exported 200 tons of the material, at a value of around £200 per ton,
from the port of Somerset in 1876. Senior (1877) stated that most of the luggers
used - such as the vessel shown in Figure 5.4 - were owned by companies in
Sydney; he wrote that no taxes or licence fees were required of those companies
by the Queensland Government, and that a merchant in Birmingham had already
purchased £30,000 of pearl-shell. Considerable optimism about the pearl-shell
industry was expressed in Queensland. In 1879, Palmer (1879, p30) wrote that
the coasts of Queensland 'abound in pearl-shell', and stated that near Cooktown
he saw 'shells as large as dinner plates and about ¾ of an inch thick', worth from
£150 to £190 per ton (see also Hedley, 1924, p5).
However, the depletion of pearl oysters had been recognised by 1897, when
the Queensland Departmental Commission on Pearl-Shell and Bêche-de-Mer
Fisheries was established to investigate the regulation of the fishery and to report
the extent of exhaustion of pearl-shell resources (Hamilton et al., 1897, p1305).
The following year, the Queensland Inspector of Pearl-Shell Fisheries, G.H.
Bennett (1898, p1042), suggested that the whole of Endeavour Strait should
be closed; that area, he stated, 'comprises grounds which have been constantly
worked for many years, and from which large quantities of shell have been taken
in the past, but it is now very much impoverished'. Bennett (1899, p995; 1900,
p1319) acknowledged the need 'to close large areas of the pearling grounds for
the purposes of conservation' so that the pearl oyster populations might recover,
and he reiterated his concerns during the following two years, adding only that