Destruction Of Trochus Shell Industry

Most Serious Aspect of Persistent Japanese Poaching in Pacific Waters

nTIIE fleet of Japanese fishing vessels, commonly known as sampans, which are at present operating in Torres Strait and Barrier Reef waters, are, according to Mr. D. B. Farquhar, of Farquhars’ Pty Ltd., Thursday Island, not only denuding the reefs of existing trochus shell beds, but they are, at the same time, removing from the reefs “everything that moves on them.”

Mr. Farquhar’s company is an active Thursday Island concern operating many boats in the trochus shell and beche-de mer industry. In the main, the boats of Farquhars’ Ltd. operate in the Torres Strait areas adjacent to Thursday Island and along the Barrier Reefs as far as the Swain Reefs, out from Mackay.

In amplifying his statement to the North Queensland Register of June 12.

Mr. Parquhar stated that the boys of hi's boats had reported to him that the Jap anese sampans, in addition to removing trochus shell and the small trochus termed “chicken shell,’’ were taking from the reefs all varieties of marine life, including coral shells, slugs, and sea weeds.

Their practice of fishing growing “chicken shell” was fast denuding all the existing beds of this highly valuable commodity. No greater emphasis could he placed on the position than by quoting comparative statistics of catches of tro chus shell obtained by Australian-oper ated boats during the past 10 years.

Ten years ago, the average catch per boat per “tucker”—by “tucker” he meant the three months period for which a boat is provisioned to remain on the reef fishing was between 14 and 15 tons.

Gradually, as the sampans began to oper ate, this figure dropped to from 12 to 10 tons per boat, then from eight to six tons per boat, and then, as the sampans be came increasingly operative, to from six tons to five tons per boat. At present the Australian boats were, with rare excep tions, obtaining a yield per “tucker’’ of from two to one and a half tons.

Nothing, concluded Mr. Farquhar, could be more conclusive than these fig ures, representing a drop from about 15 tons to about two tons in 10 years, to demonstrate how seriously the operation of the Japanese fishermen had affected the industry as conducted by Australian craft.

The position would certainly not be so bad if the Japanese refrained from fish ing the “chicken shell,” but this they would not do. The Japanese, on the other hand, were so hungry for shell, “chicken” or full grown, that, Mr. Farquhar’s boys had reported to him, they had been ob served prising the “chicken shell’’ out of small crevices in the reefs and rocks with the aid of strong iron hooks. By this means, the small shell was dragged loose out of positions from where it could never be removed by hand, and it all went into the catch.

Mrs. W. E. Jackson, wife of Captain Jackson, of the New Guinea Administra tion, arrived in Sydney in July by the Neptuna from Rabaul, with her infant son Thomas Edward. Born during the recent eruptions, in the temporary hos

pital at Vunapope Mission, where Mr.

Jackson took his wife when the first outbreak occurred, the baby has been nicknamed “Pumice” by facetious friends.

Mrs. Jackson is at present staying with her mother at Ashfield, N.S.W.