A NATIONAL SCANDAL

On Friday I was talking about animal cruelty. And I said:

Australians have been protesting, quite rightly, about the obscene slaughter of whales in the Antarctic by the Japanese. But how can we protest about them and yet right here at home protected dugongs and sea turtles are being slaughtered by Aborigines in the name of tradition and culture? Even though dugongs are listed under wildlife regulations as being ‘vulnerable to extinction’.

Well, since Friday I have received some awful, graphic stories about dugong and sea turtle slaughter up north.  They are worth passing on and we share the blame and the shame.
 
This eye witness report:
 
‘My husband and I saw first hand, terrible examples of absolute cruelty to turtles and dugongs performed by Torres Strait Islanders and Aboriginals. We sailed up the coast and ended up in Cowal Creek, just south of Seisa, Cape York, where we had obtained work.
 
 We were anchored in the creek, and on quite a few instances saw the local indigenous young men going hunting. They had large aluminium dinghys and outboards. They used to get the turtles when mating, as the turtles would remain on the surface of the water for a considerable amount of time.
 
 They really wanted the females as they eat the eggs a lot. When they came across a mating couple, one of the men would hop into the water with very large and sharp hooks , attached to  lines. He would grab the turtles and sink the hooks into the poor turtle’s neck. Then they could manhandle them into the dinghys.  We have seen them arrive back into the creek, where they would then clear off to the local canteen and get blind drunk and not return to the dinghy again for maybe two days.
 
 In the hot aluminium dinghys, the turtles were left to suffer upside down in the scorching sun.  When they then felt like it, they would return to the poor turtles to complete the cruelty. They would cut off a flipper at a time, as they needed the heart to be pumping, as they collected the blood in jugs etc. They use this in cooking.
 
Then, while the turtle is still alive, they cut around the shell, as they next reef all the eggs out. These are a delicacy to them. At this stage, one could only hope the poor turtle has died! They then roughly chop the meat from the shell and either leave the shell on the beach to rot and smell in the sun, or toss them in the ocean.
 
We have seen them coming in from hunting dugong in their dinghies, do the same thing, leave the poor animal in the sun, broiling, while they head off to the canteen. When they feel like it, we’ve seen them load the poor dugong into the bucket of a council backhoe, and off to goodness knows where to complete their butchery.
 
One time, we saw something drop out on the beach. One of the fellows came back to pick it up, and cart it off. We asked later, what it was and  we were told ‘baby dugong, him good eating!'
 
 We have been anchored out on the islands in the Torres Straits and seen half a dozen turtles, with holes drilled in their shells, with ropes tied on to them and the other end tied on to a coconut tree. The poor turtles are left to keep trying to swim for freedom for as much as a week or two.
 
When we questioned them about this practice, we were told they were keeping them fresh for a big feast day coming up. These people have a lot to answer regarding depleting numbers of dugongs and turtles.
 
As far as I'm concerned, they do not have any right to so called ‘traditional' hunting. This may have been the case in the olden days, when it was a food source and the catching was done in dugouts and canoes.
 
These days, they take the white man’s money. They have no reason to hunt for food, and the slaughter they are committing is performed in fast speed aluminum dinghys and powerful outboard motors, all bought and in some instances, actually given to them, all using white man’s money.
 
We have in the past, tried to bring this practice to various peoples attention, National Parks, politicians, police in the Torres Straits and been told, virtually, that it was too political to pursue the matter.
 
We have heard, they fly shipments of turtle and dugong meat all over Australia . I only hope that this barbaric practice can be stopped.’  
 
So do I. It is national scandal.
 
Monday, January 18, 2010

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2010