Lergessner, 2007:

"Early accounts indicate that dugong numbers pre-commercial harvest were substantial. As an example: “One of the fishermen of Wide Bay told the writer…he had seen a mob which appeared to fill the water with their bodies. He computed this school ... to be half a mile wide and from three to four miles long…The writer’s boat once anchored in Hervey’s bay, in one of those channels through which the tide passes when running off the flats.  For between three and four hours there was a continuous stream of dugong passing while the tide went out, which those in the boat could only liken to the rush of cattle out of a stockyard after a general muster ... some thousands must have gone out with the tide.”  Thorne, E. (1876). Queen of the Colonies.

In 1847, there were reports of one of the first commercial dugong fisheries at Amity Point, Stradbroke Island.

In 1878, concerns were expressed in the Maryborough Chronicle about falling dugong numbers in Hervey Bay.
    
In 1893, a dugong herd was reported in Rous Channel, Moreton Bay, of 3 miles long and 300 yards wide.

Early exploitation of the resource by Japanese pearlers’ was recorded by Edmund Banfield in 1922 in a letter to journalist Alec Chisholm. Banfield writes: “There is one other favourite beast of mine that you might like to take under your shield – the dugong.  Like the nutmegs the harmless creatures are fast being exterminated by the Japs who have a practical monopoly of the Great Barrier Reef.  No sooner does a lugger anchor in the Bay (referring to Brammo Bay, Dunk Island), or anywhere in the neighbourhood than three or four dinghies will be chucked over-board for raid.  As you know, dugong are shy and slow breeders and since they are perpetually harried in shallow waters they like the pigeons (referring to the American Passenger pigeon, which went extinct in 1914 from over-exploitation) will soon be numbered among the extincts” (cited Noonan 1983; 209; in Bowen and Bowen, pg. 228)

Between the mid-1800s until the dugong was protected in Queensland (1969), there was a (episodic) dugong fishery operating out of Moreton Bay and Hervey Bay.  Much of the take remains unquantified, but using some of the data presented in Lergessner (2007), it can be estimated that between 1924 and 1944, some 1300 dugong were taken out of Hervey Bay, and between 1930 and 1945 some 1450 dugong were taken out of Moreton Bay."

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Citation and/or URL

 Lergessner, J. G. 2007. Embattled Seacows: Dugongers in Early Queensland. 248 pp. 

Spatial Coverage

 East coast of Queensland

Temporal Coverage

 >100 years

Update Frequency

Not applicable 

Other Information

Peterkin, C. 1994.  "The dugong fishing industry of south-east Queensland: Its Rise, Demise and Consequences". June 1994 (Zoology Dept., University of Queensland).