The bêche-de-mer, pearl-shell and trochus fisheries - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 68

The trochus fishery
The harvesting of trochus ( Trochus niloticus ) in the Great Barrier Reef occurred
later than the main period of the bêche-de-mer and pearl-shell fisheries, since
trochus was regarded as inferior to pearl oysters as a source of shell and was less
sought after, although it was intended for the same purposes: button manufacture
and the ornamental trade (Great Barrier Reef Fisheries Ltd, 1929, p15). Between at
least 1912 and the 1950s, a large amount of trochus was harvested from the Great
Barrier Reef. In 1912, Taylor (1925, p218) reported that the value of trochus in the
Queensland fishery was £12,000, with most of the revenue derived from exports to
Austria and Japan, and by 1916 the annual trochus harvest was around 500 tons. In
July 1917, one shipment of trochus shell - weighing 5 tons 11 cwt - was handled in
Bowen harbour by the A.U.S.N. Company; another shipment, of 6 tons 9 cwt, was
transported in May 1936. Two further shipments of shell - weighing 3 tons 16 cwt,
and 6 tons respectively - were handled at Bowen in July and August 1939 . 3 T he
material continued to be collected primarily for export, as Suggate (1940, p157)
reported, with the majority used to supply the Japanese market. The reefs of the
northern Great Barrier Reef were extensively fished for trochus, and a large fishery
also existed in Torres Strait, but the industry subsequently expanded to include
the entire Great Barrier Reef, including the little-charted Swain Reefs in which
trochus luggers operated as early as 1936 (Christesen, 1936, p28).
As the trochus fishery operated more recently than the bêche-de-mer and
pearl-shell fisheries, some oral history evidence illuminates its operation. One
former trochus diver described diving for trochus in the area between Cooktown
and Sudbury Reef, near Cairns, stating that the crews worked the reefs 'till we
had nineteen to twenty ton, […] enough for the boat to carry. Used to call in
Cooktown and put off some shells'. The same informant reported that the trochus
crews worked for between six and eight months of the year, based at islands and
harvesting many reefs between Cooktown and Cairns, and he stated: 'I was still
on the boat at wartime. [...] The Americans used to buy the shell during the war,
for making buttons' . 4 Another trochus diver recalled working many reefs between
Cape York and Cooktown, stating:
We seemed to work from a little below Somerset right down to almost
Portland Roads. There were a lot of reefs and they'd work right along the
reefs. And they'd usually anchor the boat on the leeward side and you'd row a
dinghy and work your way back to the boat. So, depending on the tides, you
were diving in shallow water up to quite deep: we went down about fourteen
or fifteen feet . 5
The same informant reported that trochus divers searched reef edges to find
trochus; some carried the shells by hand, holding about a dozen at a time, but
most used a small bag until the trochus could be emptied onto the boat. The
processing of the animal took place on deck, as the same informant explained: