Informing dugong hunting management in torres strait by studying dugong movements and habitat usage
Other Publication ResearchOnline@JCUAbstract
[Extract] Torres Strait supports the world's largest dugong population and is the location of the largest marine mammal harvest in Australia. Local information and modelling suggest that the population may be over-harvested. A workshop in 2008 explored the potential for spatial closures as a tool to manage the Indigenous harvest. Management plans have been developed by 15 Torres Strait communities since 2008 and some plans include closures as one of the management tools. However, these closures are not co-ordinated across plan jurisdictions. The development of spatial management for dugong in Torres Strait is challenging because little is known about the spatial ecology of dugong in this region. Insights into the movement of dugongs in Torres Strait were provided by this project, where six dugongs were satellite tracked at Mabuiag Island. Tagged dugongs were highly individualistic and moved across management jurisdictions, with some moving north towards Papua New Guinea crossing the Torres Strait Protected Zone Joint Authority region (PZJA), and others moving towards the southern boundary of the PZJA. These results confirm that for dugong management in Torres Strait to be effective: 1) initiatives must be co-ordinated across jurisdictions, and that 2) plans managing dugong hunting will need to also be developed by the Northern Peninsula Area in mainland Australia where the dugong hunting grounds straddle the boundaries of Torres Strait, the Great Barrier Reef and Gulf of Carpentaria waters and by Western Province in PNG.
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34
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James Cook University
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Townsville
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