Japanese Shell Poachers

How Evil Has Grown In and Around Torres Straits

ANOTHER of the fast and elusive Japanese shell-poaching sampans was reported in Torres Straits on January 31.

It disappeared, at high speed, when sighted.

The representative of the “Melbourne Herald,” writing from Darwin in January, supplied the following summary of the position in and around the western end of Torres Straits:— The decision of the Federal Government to station a seaplane permanently at Dar win to check the activities of foreign poachers in northern waters draws atten tion to the great amount of poaching that has been done in recent years.

The first attempt to poach on a big scale was detected in 1931, when a white man in Darwin applied for a licence for a pearl ing lugger. When his application was re fused, because it was believed that he was only dummying for a Japanese diver, this diver left Darwin with the lugger for which the white man had applied for a licence, and from headquarters at the Aroe Islands, fished the Bathurst Island grounds for that season. His success was imme diately followed up by a Japanese com pany, which fitted out at the Caroline islands two big 30-ton luggers, twice the size of any boats operating in Darwin, and through the 1932 season joined the other Japanese in poaching at Bathurst Island.

Prices Fall

Last year two more 30-tonners from Prahoe in the Caroline Islands appeared on the beds, and as each 30-tonner worked four divers the fleet took such a quantity of shell that there was a big fall in price when it was marketed at the same time as the shell fished by the Darwin fleet. This fleet of five was reinforced by five other boats, Dutch-owned, from the Aroe Islands, making the poaching fleet 10.

Darwin pearlers fear that this year they will be faced with competition from at least 20 poaching luggers because word has been received from divers in the Aroe Islands poaching boats that the Celebes Island Trading Company, which owns the

pearling concession at the Aroe Islands, intends to build 10 big fast luggers to fish the new rich beds recently found off Bathurst Island.

Raids On Camps

There is also a possibility that other lug gers will be built at the Caroline Islands, so in that case the poaching fleet will far outnumber the Darwin fleet. Pearling, Customs and inlmigration authorities in the past three years found themselves unable to check poaching because there was not available in Darwin a boat fast enough to surprise the poachers at anchorage in ter ritorial waters and catch them before they gained the safety of the high seas.

Half a dozen raids were made on the shore camps of the poachers on Bathurst and Melville Islands, but the only success was the seizure of about six tons of shell in a poacher’s camp. On all other occa sions the raiding boat with officials on board was sighted and outdistanced.

Trafficking In Lubras

Some of these raids were made following complaints by the Roman Catholic Mission at Bathurst Island that the Japanese were openly trafficking in lubras in mission ter ritory. These complaints were borne out when, in one raid, the police surprised the crews of Darwin boats with lubras on board. These Japanese were subsequently fined in Darwin.

Mission authorities state that it is the usual practice for both poaching and Dar win crews to fraternise with the natives when they return to their camps on Bathurst Island when the tides are too strong on the pearling grounds, and a great number have native women whom they have purchased from the tribes there.

Darwin pearlers believe that an aerial patrol will effectively put a stop to the poaching because the fear of arrest and seizure of boats found in territorial waters should be sufficient to deter poachers from venturing ashore. Without the respite of a shore camp, they doubt whether the crews will face a spell of several months at sea 200 miles from their headquarters.