HUNTING THE DUGONG.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 15 December 1925, Page 9

HUNTING THE DUGONG.

IN TORRES STRAIT. EXCITING PASTIME. An exciting pastime, or trade — according to whether the hunters are sportsmen or professionals—is the hunting of the dugong, a. remarkable tortoise-like fish, or animal, belonging to the order of mammals, one of whose habitats is the warm northern waters that wash the northern coast of Australia. In the islands of Torres Strait they are frequently encountered and hunted by white men and black, l'fie flesh is named “Torres Island beef,” for it is palatable and nutritious, and, according to some eaters, much more deserving of the term “beef” than much of the sort that, when alive, walks around on four legs with cloven hooves. The dugong is hunted from boats with harpoons, the harpoon used consisting ol ; two parts—the wap and the qiur. The wap is a long, heavy wooden instrument shaped like a potato masher, and into a hole bored in the thick end of the' wap is fitted the qium, a barbed and sharpened iron about Sin long. The qiur is firmly fastened to the end of about 50 yards of stout rope. When the' animal is struck the qiur disengages, allowing the wap to float and be recovered. The hunting ground having been selected, one of the crew of the boat, generallj a black boy, ascends to the cross-trees to keep a look-out for the quarry. The chief factor for success is silence; all unnatural sounds must be eliminated. The flap of a loose sail or the sound of a human voice would scare every dugong within a quarter of a mile. The ' dugong is blind, but its hearing is remarkably keen. When a dugong is sighted, the lookout indicates its position by stretching out his arm, and the man at the tiller steers accordingly. When the cutter approaches near a school of basking dugong the harpooner is standing at the end of the jib-boo#n, another of the crew is. in position to pay out the rope attached to the harpoon, and a crew of four is prepared to launch a dinghy at a moment’s notice. The harpooner having struck, the dinghy is dashed overboard, the crew of four tumble into it, and if they are. smart enough, grab the end of the line attached to the harpoon as it slips over the bow of the cutter. The dugong' dashes off, and the dinghy is towed at a tremendous pace by the stricken quarry. The tow lasts for about a quarter of a mile, and then one of the crew strips to leap overboard and slip a noose round the tail of the animal. When the noose is fixed in position the dugong is upended and killed by drowning. Sometimes the fixing of the noose is delayed by a shark in the neighbourhood, and these monsters at other times attack a'harpooned dugong and rip large pieces out. of it before it is brought aboard the cutter.

The natives of the islands capture the dugong by constructing a “dugong house” near a known feeding-ground close inshore. The dugong house is built of four long mangrove poles lashed diagonally in pairs and driven firmly into the sand. The contraption is braced from the top of one pair of legs to the bottom of the other pair, the brace being inclined in the direction from which it is expected the dugong will come At high water the platform is about four or five feet above the surface, and to it the .line is fastened. The operator sits on the platform and waits for a dugong to approach within striking distance. The object in this method is to harpoon the dugong at the base of the skull. If this’ is done, the animal gives a few convulsive swipes with its tail and dies. If it is struck at any other ola.ce it will race away to sea. and.it then depends upon the strength ot the dugong house whether the latter ’' vl “ follow it to sea or act like an anchorage. — m