Early European Visitors to Quandamooka

With Peter Ludlow

My first interest in Moreton Bay’s history was aroused in the late 1940s when I came across a map published by the Shell Company of Australia. My father, a great fishing enthusiast, must have bought it with fishing in mind, but my youthful interest was triggered by just two words printed on its outline of North Stradbroke Island, just above Swan Bay: Spanish galleon.

I guess I was at the ‘playing pirates’ stage of my youth and the idea of having our own Spanish galleon here on our doorstep was very exciting.  But had there really been a Spanish galleon in Moreton Bay? The riddle just added to its mystique.

So it was with a great interest that fifty years later, I discovered that Eric Reye, who had contributed so much to my writings about Peel Island, had also been fascinated by the same map references to the galleon.  But he had gone one step further and about 1940 had paddled off in his canoe to seek it out! 

            In actual fact, the galleon was probably Portuguese and not Spanish and is thought to have been wrecked here in the early 1600s. However, although many sightings of the wreck have been recorded and there are tales of artefacts being removed, no concrete evidence has yet been found to prove its existence. 

            Of course, these European navigators were not the first humans to visit Moreton Bay, for the Aborigines have lived here for thousands of years. One can only imagine their surprise at seeing the masses of white canvas sails on these huge, square rigged ships. And when Cook sailed past in 1770 they little knew that he was giving a name to their still unwritten land: Morton Bay(after James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton, and misspelled by later cartographers as Moreton Bay).

            Matthew Flinders in 1799 made the first recorded contact with the Bay’s indigenous people when he landed at Bribie Island and was met by a group of Aborigines.  A short attempt at trading only heightened the tension and mistrust between the two groups and ended with a spear being thrown and a musket fired in return. The spot of this encounter was named Skirmish Point by Flinders, and symbolises much of the early encounters between the indigenous people and the European newcomers.

            For come they did when John Oxley arrived in 1824 with a group of convicts to set up a settlement at Redcliffe Point.  The following year it was moved to a site on the Brisbane River and continued as a convict settlement until 1839. From 1842, when Moreton Bay was thrown open to free settlement, immigrants arrived in their droves.  Life for the indigenous people would never be the same.

Quandamooka (Moreton Bay)

(Extract from ‘Moreton Bay Letters’ Peter Ludlow 2003)

“JESSANARRY” (The Wadsworths of Moreton Island) – Part 1

Looking seaward from Bribie’s Ocean Beach, the huge shape of Moreton Island sprawls southward along the horizon.  At various points, its vegetation gives way to patches of white: reminding us that the island is mostly sand.  Its tallest point, Mount Tempest at 280 metres is reputed to be one of the highest sandhills in the world.

Between Bribie and Moreton Islands, the wide stretch of water is known as the North Passage, shipping’s gateway to Moreton Bay.  To the south of Moreton Island, and separating it from Stradbroke, is the old South Passage, the original and more dangerous entrance to the bay.  

                                                                                    

Quandamooka (Moreton Bay)

Following the huge loss of life when the “Sovereign” was wrecked in 1847 while trying to cross the South Passage bar, there was an increasing transference of shipping from the South Passage to the North Passage.  Until that time the bay’s Pilot Station had been located at Amity on Stradbroke.  From here, when a ship entered the bay, a pilot vessel would be dispatched to guide it safely into port.   In 1848 then, the Pilot Station was moved from Amity to Cowan Cowan on Moreton where, by 1860, it was recorded as having in residence two pilots, nine boatmen, and others, all living in wretched conditions.  Later the Pilot Station was shifted still further north on Moreton to Bulwer.

To mark the new entrance to Moreton Bay, the Cape Moreton lighthouse was built on the northern seaward end of Moreton Island in 1856.            Constructed of stone quarried from the island itself, the lighthouse is now under control of the Commonwealth Government, unlike those within the bay, which come under the auspices of the Queensland Government’s Department of Harbours and Marine.

Because of the inaccessible nature of Cape Moreton, stores for the Cape Moreton light had to be offloaded at Bulwer in the early days and hauled across the island on horse-drawn sand sleds.

In the first few years following Queensland’s separation from New South Wales in 1859, a number of lights with large kerosene burners fitted with dioptric apparatus were erected at various strategic points around Moreton Bay, including Comboyuro Point and Cowan Cowan on Moreton Island.  In 1867 the height of the light at Cowan Cowan was increased from 18 feet to 34 feet, so that vessels approaching port would not lose sight of it before the next light was picked up.  In the following year, to cater for navigational changes within Moreton Bay, an additional lighthouse was built at Yellowpatch on Moreton Island.

Extract from ‘Moreton Bay People – The Complete Collection’.

(To be continued)

Playing the Banjo – Part 2

Frank Willoughby continues:

“I was born in 1933 but before that my brothers Tom and Bert, and my sister Gwen worked the “Regina” with dad.   Then later, my other brother, George Junior (“Nugget”), firstly on the “Regina” and later on the “S’port”.   Then I came along.  I started on the boats as a kid from when I was 6 years old.  When I got a bit more muscle, I used to work the guy which controlled the boom on the jetty at Southport.  The boats were loaded on Mondays in Brisbane and they arrived at Southport on Wednesdays. 

The trip from Brisbane

“I remember making many trips to Southport working on the “Florant” with my father, George.  Allan Thompson was the “Florant”‘s engineer because I was too young.  When we went aground, I used to have to roll all the drums on the deck aft to get over the bank.

“Florant” at Norman Wright’s boatyard (photo courtesy Graham Day)

 “Dad called me “Nap”.  On the trip down from Brisbane, when we reached Pott’s Point (we called it Pat’s Point) on Macleay Island he would flip a coin and ask me to call.  Heads we’d go through Canaipa or tails via Jacob’s Well. If we went by the Well, we’d lose a day and I’d miss out on time for sailing or going to the pictures.  If we went to Canaipa I had my sleep from Pott’s Point to Tulleen oyster banks, then dad would have his sleep while I rowed for two hours against the tide from Tulleen to Jacobs Well with the groceries.  Then if the tide was right, we got a good run to Southport and I’d have time for swimming and the pictures.

“We’d also call in to Bill Doberleen where Couran Cove now is.  Also, Bob and Mrs Latter used to live there, and the Fishers. To go there by boat was 7/6 but dad would waive the fee in exchange for fruit or crabs.  We also got oysters from Currigee.  If we arrived too early for them, I used to help them bag them.  

            “On the Broadwater as we approached Southport, our vessel would pass the Deep Hole, round the first buoy to Biggera Creek, pass the Grand Hotel, then fisherman’s wharf at Marine Parade.  Then came Mitchell’s wharf, and we’d swing to a set of butterfly leads that took you to Parrot Rock where Tuesley’s had an oyster bank and where they used to pump yabbies.  Then we’d round the beacon, pass the Pier Theatre, pass the buoy in front of the Civic Hotel, then swing to port and up towards the Basin and the old “Mawonda”.  Then we had to stop and lower the mast to get under the old Jubilee Bridge.   In the old days the bridge had a lift span which had to be raised by hand.  I think Harry Crompton used to do this.  Then the authorities put a hump in the bridge so the Kleinschmidt’s could get their boat under.

“On the return trips, the boats called into the White Cliffs on Stradbroke Island to load sand for the glassworks, Queensland Glass Manufacturers (QGM) in Brisbane.  We also supplied sand to Silso Sand Soap, Sargeant’s Foundy, and children’s playgrounds.

Playing the Banjo 

This was the term used for shovelling sand onto the “Florant” at the White Cliffs in the Canaipa Passage on Stradbroke Island.  All the work was done by hand, even at night by the light of paint pots filled with burning dieseline.  An added bonus for working at night was that the smoke kept the mossies away.  The “Florant”‘s days were to end at the White Cliffs when she caught fire and burnt there.

            Sand shovelling was back breaking work and was not for the faint hearted.  Indeed, sand shovelling championships were organised at Southport to see who could fill a truck the fastest.  Graham Dillon was one of the champs.  Best times were about twenty minutes for one man or ten minutes for a two-man team.  In original competitions, a keg of beer was the prize, but later prizes were chrome plated shovels.

“Florant” loading sand (photo Graham Day)

(Extract from ‘Moreton Bay People, The Complete Collection’)

Working at Dunwich (Noel Brown)

My father, Mark Brown

My grandfather, George Brown, was a descendant of Fernandez Gonzales, a ‘Manila man’ who Tom Welsby once described as ‘the Patriarch of Moreton Bay’. George married Granny Mubue, an Aborigine from the mainland, and their children included my father, Markwell “Mark” George Brown, and my five aunts Daisy Campbell, Tilly Martin, Ethel Close, Vera Perry, and Mabel Brown (she remained unmarried). Our family lived at the Two Mile, which as the name implies was a community situated two miles north of Dunwich. Mark Brown, my father, worked at the old people’s institution at Dunwich as an engineer. He looked after the gas and steam engines there.

Apart from fishing and oystering, the old people’s Institution was the only source of employment for the people of Stradbroke Island. So, when it closed down in about 1947, my father worked at the Lazaret (leprosarium) on Peel Island just across the water from Dunwich. He remained working there until the sand mining started up on Stradbroke Island. At this stage our family moved from the Two Mile to Dunwich. My father worked for the mining in the carpenters’ shop until he retired and went to live at Southport.

Noel Brown

I went to school in Dunwich and when I left, I worked with Bonty Dickson, one of the personalities of Stradbroke and who later became its first Councillor. I worked with him on his oyster leases, then started boat building with him. One of the things I remember about Bonty was that he rode a three-wheeled bike.

Bonty Dickson’s store at Dunwich (photo courtesy Ray Cowie)

When the sand mines started up, I worked on the dredge on Main Beach. The dredge was used to pump the sand mix into the separating towers where the heavy mineral sands were separated from ordinary sand by centrifugal force. Then I helped put through the ropeway from Main Beach to Dunwich, via the Blue Lake and the 18 Mile Swamp. This ropeway (wire) was to transport the mineral sand in buckets across Stradbroke Island to Dunwich from where it was taken by barge to Brisbane and thence overseas.

The company mining the mineral sands then was called Tazi, which was located at Tazitown on the 18-mile swamp. This is now called Con Rutile. Now (1996) there are two sand companies, one at Dunwich (Con [Consolidated] Rutile) and the other at Amity Point.

 (Editor: Consolidated Rutile was a fixed mining operation on North Stradbroke Island with a workforce of up to 150 men housed in accommodation centered at Dunwich. The mineral concentrates were barged to Meeandah near Brisbane airport for separation into heavy mineral components.)

D9 Bulldozers hitched up to move a section of the plant on N.Stradbroke c.1976 (Photo courtesy Felix Fries)

Noel Brown, Southport, 1996

(Extract from Peter Ludlow’s book ‘Moreton Bay People 2012’ (now out of print)

(Editor: Sand mining ceased on Stradbroke Island in 2019).

Moreton Bay’s Frontier Islands – Stradbroke Island (Allan Gilmour)

My first association with Amity was as a Boy Scout when I was very young.  We used to visit Stradbroke for camps. There were only a couple of houses at Amity then – notably that of John Campbell and Bill Bacchus. Although they were no longer living there, a story persisted about Bill going for walks with his Foxie dog and a white goat called Snowie. They made an unusual sight.

Bill Bacchus outside his hut at Amity Point

I was at Straddie before there was a road built from Amity to Point Lookout, and the only access was by Campbell’s truck via the beach at low tide. About halfway to Point Lookout a survival hut had been built. It contained some tinned food and water for shipwreck survivors. However, some louts wrecked it. It was about 11 miles from Amity to Point Lookout and we had to carry with us all our gear and enough food to last us for the week of our stay.

There was no one living at Point Lookout then, but there was a story that cattle had once been grazed there. Once, when I was about 16 years old, I saw the gorge in a storm and our group was nearly washed off the rocks at its entrance by a freak wave. The water came right up to our chests and we only survived by holding on to each other. At New Year, there would always be a big bonfire at Point Lookout, and on one of these occasions 2 or 3 people were drowned. Their fate was less fortunate than mine.

Point Lookout’s North Gorge Looking East (photo courtesy of David Liu)

Near the lighthouse, there was a natural spring of fresh water and a hut had been constructed close by. A ship’s tank had been positioned there to collect the water for anyone’s use. Inside the hut, some unknown artist had painted directly onto the wooden wall a magnificent panorama looking from the Point. It was so good that I decided to bring a saw with me on my next visit and cut out the section of wall containing the painting. But someone else must have had the same idea because on my next visit, the painting had already been cut out and removed.

During the Great Depression in the 1920s, everyone used to have an enforced one-week off in every six so that more people could be employed. It was during my week off that I used to visit Amity. A couple of old crabbers used to take us to Amity. They were on the dole but this didn’t stop them collecting orders for up to 50 sand crabs at a time!

Allen Gilmour


October 2007.

(Extract from Peter Ludlow’s book ‘Moreton Bay People 2012’ (now out of print)

Welcome to the Moreton Bay Online Podcast.

Moreton Bay Online – The Podcast

With the corona virus still keeping us in lockdown, this is an ideal time to catch up on some Moreton Bay podcasts.

A year ago, I was interviewed by Katie Walters, who was then a PhD candidate at Griffith University. Katie has created a series of podcasts in which she interviews people who live around Moreton Bay to discover what they love about it, how they came to be here, and how they interact with it.

Katie says: ‘Moreton Bay is special to all of us, for a huge number of reasons, and sharing those reasons with each other is one way we can build community and coastal capacity – and promote custodianship so that our bay stays beautiful and productive for the generations to come.’

You can access Katie’s podcast at the following links (mine is Episode 8):
Podcast: http://moretonbayonline.libsyn.com/mbop-e08-peter-ludlow

Blog: https://moretonbayscience.com/?p=185

Early German Immigrants to the Moreton Bay Settlement – 01 – The Missionaries:

From Moreton Bay’s beginning as a penal settlement in 1824, the authorities   intended to use it as a base for missionary work among the aborigines. The Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Brisbane, intimated through the Attorney General, Mr. Saxe Banister, to a deputation from the London Missionary Society, a wish that something might he attempted on behalf of the aborigines.

In his book Cooksland Dr. John Dunmore Lang describes the genesis of the German Lutheran Mission he was instrumental in founding at Nundah: “My attention,” he writes, “was strongly directed to the subject of establishing a mission to the aborigines of Australia so early as the year 1831, and during that year, and in the year 1834 I made  three  successive  attempts to establish such a mission by means of Scotch missionaries, but without success.

The difficulty of securing Scottish missionaries was probably due to the fact that at the time there was an exodus of Scottish peasants to Canada, and that the Scottish clergy preferred to follow their own flocks to minister to their spiritual needs in the new home they sought beyond the seas. ¹

In 1837 Dr Lang had been in Great Britain in search of missionaries to evangelise the Aborigines in the Moreton Bay area. He had been about to return to Australia without any success when he heard of Pastor Johannes Evangelista Gossner and his lay-missionary training centre at the Bethlehem Evangelical Church in Berlin. Dr Lang travelled to Berlin and enthusiastically outlined his plans to Pastor Gossner and his students, saying he felt Moreton Bay was ideally suited to a mission station. ²

A knowledge of Australia was widespread throughout German-speaking Europe: Yde T’Jercxzoon Holman, or Holleman, was second in command of the Heemskerk on Tasman’s second voyage, and on Cook’s second voyage he was accompanied by two German scientists, Johann Reinhold Forster and his son, Johann Georg Adam. The son’s work in particular, with its account of the Great Barrier Reef, was widely read.  A German account of’ the third voyage was also published. Flinders on his voyage in the Investigator (1801-1803) had with him an Austrian, Ferdinand Bauer, whose account of the voyage was embellished with 1400 illustrations of Australian botanical specimens. ³

Doryanthes excelsa

This is an image of Doryanthes excelsa from Ferdinand Bauer’s ‘Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae’.

References:

1. Sparks, H.J.J.; Queensland’s First Free Settlement 1838–1938.

2. Nundah and Districts Historical Society Inc.

Doctor David Cilento – 3 – The Doctors Carl and David Cilento

‘To finance my medical studies, I helped a restaurant. I had left home when I was about sixteen, and teamed up with a Russian friend Kyrill Wypow who was 15 years older than I was. I had put together a bit of money from building fishing rods, and screen printing, and all sorts of other things: I was a bit of an entrepreneur. We started a restaurant called ‘The Pelican Tavern’ down on St Paul’s Terrace. It was a tricky life because I had often went to the markets at 5 in the morning, help with the business, go to lectures, and study at night. I’ve never slept more than about 5 hours a night all my life. (It’s still a misery for my wife, Eileen, at times!)

‘Carl was my elder brother: he was eight years older than I was.  He was a boating man always. Carl and I both went to an auction of land at Kooringal on Moreton Island. The prices were so good that we bought two blocks there. I urged Carl to set up his medical practice there, so he paid $1800 for one block and $1670 for the other.  He started a practice there, and I started going back seeing people at Amity again, but only at the weekends, and that lasted for years and years. In our spare time we’d visit each other and go fishing. There were a lot of kerosene fridges at Amity after the electricity arrived, and standing on the foreshore was an old windmill which I had rigged up with an old International truck generator and that sent a bit of power into the place to recharge the batteries. Once the power came on at Amity the fridges and the windmill went over to Kooringal. I had a big punt and as long as people gave me enough money for fuel, I’d bring the fridges over for them. Carl’s son, Peter, put in a nice generator there. Carl did a couple of amazing saves of people’s lives by being able to call up the helicopter. By that time, I was only seeing the odd patients at Amity or those occasionally coming in from Dunwich. I was still claimed as a fellow soul by the Aboriginal families such as the Coolwells, and some of the Ruskas. Every time I was in town my good friend of many years Emma Coolwell would rush up to me and give me a kiss and a hug – much to some people’s amazement.

Central Moreton Bay

 ‘Although I had brought my family up to Brisbane from Amity, I never really left my medical practice on the island. I’d go back for a week sometimes, but I really felt worn out. The Tazi mine people, wanted me to be a full-time doctor there, and were going to give me a surgery at Dunwich. They wanted me to do all their staff medicals as well as being a GP. Dunwich was coming on because the barges had started, but Frank Carroll had bitten the bullet and said he would give it a go, and he was very successful. I had started the practice at the office at the Forbes’ place – Elkorn Lodge on the beach at the end of Birch Street, next to the old Post Office – I still have the sign: my brass plate and the hours. I’d go down either in my boat or on the barge on a Friday and come back on a Monday morning. Then I’d go to work (in Brisbane) Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday before returning to Stradbroke on Friday. The grape vine there was absolutely phenomenal. The islanders knew exactly how long it would take me to get from Dunwich (where the barge landed) to Amity; whether I was on the barge; and they knew when the boat was late; but as soon as I got to the surgery the phone would ring ‘Hello doc. I only need a script’.

‘Our house at Amity was called ‘Didjabringabiralong’ It looked like an Aboriginal word and people would say ‘How do you pronounce it?’ It was the Gregory’s old house which they had bought in 1931. The house was built in 1926, which I bought and added to. It grew like topsy. We also owned the place behind it. I sold up both and we moved down the beach a bit to a site more protected from erosion by rocks placed on the foreshore, and now known as “shoreline armouring”. In the shoreline management plan, all those rocks are illegal under the rules of the Maritime Services (then Harbours and Marine), and EHA (Evironment and Heritage Agency). It has now been proven to work with the aid of a remarkable man called Konrad Beinssen, a very wonderful marine and littoral scientist. He is now a world authority on beach front erosion in many parts of the world. He has discovered what we call a slide-flow breach is a change in the patterning of the slope of the sand, as in the Rainbow Channel. If you dig a hole at the bottom of the slope it puts the sand at a different pitch as the sand starts falling into it, and it keeps falling into it, until it makes this enormous fan shaped hole which is pouring out into the deep water, until it hits something that stops it. The boss of littoral science from the Netherlands, called Dick Masbergen, came out and verified Konrad’s discovery. We have now stopped the erosion at Amity. We invited the whole of the Redland Council over and about 9 or 10 came. They had lunch and I said I would stand the Mayor on a rock that we had put in 42 years before. They couldn’t believe me because they’d paid $50,000 to a littoral engineer to produce a report that said Amity is doomed. This meant that if your house was so many metres near the waterfront, you either had to knock if down or take it away. Which is rubbish. Anyway the Councillors came over and wanted to know how long this thriving frontal protection had been going on! They were absolutely astounded. This is a problem with many Government Departments, who make decisions without ever having physically observed the problems themselves.’

Kooringal – Dr Carl Cilento Memorial Helipad at Kooringal (photo Kathy Brinckman)

Dr Carl Cilento Memorial inscription (photo Kathy Brinckman)

Doctor David Cilento – 2 – My Father, Sir Raphael Cilento

David Cilento was a too young to ever go to Peel Island when it was in business as a leprosarium (1907 – 1959). His father, Sir Raphael Cilento, when he was Director General of Health, had removed all the Aborigines from Peel in 1940. He was away in Europe when the War ended, because he was one of the world’s top epidemiologists and he was controlling epidemics in up to 10 million displaced people in Europe. Then the cure for leprosy came in at Peel in 1947: firstly Promin which wasn’t very efficient, then Dapsone, and lastly the Triple Therapy (dapsone, rifampicin and clofazimine) which is still used today.

The Aboriginal people at Peel were transferred to Fantome Island in the Palm Island Group because Peel was becoming very overcrowded by 1940. The Aborigines were a dispirited lot having been bought to Peel from such places as Cherbourg and outlying districts out west and up north. There was a pocket of leprosy north of Townsville and another at Yarrabah, which was an isolated mission then – no roads or anything. But Sir Raphael, as Director General of Health, had the power to move the Aborigines from Peel up to Fantome Island which had been a lock hospital, and had a few huts.  Orpheus Island was nearby and was privately owned. Palm Island had a settlement. None of them had any water, which was a serious problem. The water table was a problem and was only about a metre below the surface. David can remember his father saying that to get water into there they had boats coming over on a weekly basis. 

Map showing the relative positions of Fantome and Peel Islands

David continues: ‘When dad came back from overseas after working with the United Nations, he came back to a job but the Government had changed. Not only was he the Director General of Health, but he was knighted for removing malaria from Australia. What he did, of course, would have put him in jail now, because he drained a lot of wetlands! But it got rid of the anopheles mosquito. He became a barrister and he became Director General of Health and Home Affairs, which included the police, and he was always getting called into Court. He was a most interesting bloke, and was better known than my mother at that time. He was well known overseas while her star was rising here. When he came back, he thought ‘Well, I’ll become a GP again.’ So he did, and worked up on the Sunshine Coast.

‘When the treatment for Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease or simply HD as it became known) became available in 1947 after the second world war, my dad was overseas. But he was still smart enough to make a diagnosis of HD in a patient at Royal Brisbane in about 1955. He asked the doctors what tests they had done: pauci bacteria or multi bacteria but they had already lost their diagnostic skills for HD. He wrote the book ‘Treatment of Tropical Diseases’ in the 1930s, which was used by the Americans and the Japanese, but the Australians decided that they would use something else at first, but later they decided that they woulduse it. There is an old saying One is rarely a prophet in one’s own backyard.He also wrote the book ‘Triumph in the Tropics’ with Clem Lake for the Queensland Centenary in 1959. 

‘I was born in Australia as was my father, Raphael. I was fourth generation Australian. My great grandfather was Salvatore and he was then the Prince of Naples and the two Sicilies. This was the time when the civil war was on and Ferdinand and Victor Emmanuel wanted to unite all of Italy and make the one king over the lot My great great great grandfather was the king of Naples and the two Siciles, the “Sicily the first” being part of the boot and “Sicily the second” being the island.’

Wading and Shore Birds of Moreton Bay

Recently at our Toondah Probus Club our guest speaker was Peter Rothlisberg whose topic was ‘Wading and Shore Birds of Moreton Bay’. Peter is the current secretary of the Queensland Waders Study Group (www.waders.org.au). He has now retired from CSIRO which he joined in 1975, but still works at the University of Queensland campus. The Queensland Wader Study Group (QWSG) was established in 1992 as a special interest group within Birds Queensland, to monitor wader populations in Queensland and to work towards their conservation. The term waders is used in the UK, and shorebirds is used in the US. In Australia we use both terms to denote such species as Plovers, Lapwings, Curlews, and Sandpipers. The survival of all of which are in trouble in Moreton Bay because of the following issues:

Habitat loss
• Coastal development (e.g. Raby Bay, Toondah Harbour)
• Port development (e.g Wavebreak Island cruise ship terminal on the Gold Coast)
• Mangrove incursion
• Feral plants and animals
Human disturbance – recreation
• Dogs off leash
• Beach traffic (4WDs)
• Bait harvesting (birds vs humans)
• Kite surfing (birds mistake kites for predators such as hawks)

In short, it all comes down to competition between humans and the birds – and its we humans who are winning unless we become more mindful of the other animals with which we share our world.

Moreton Bay Ramsar Wetland

Since 1993 Moreton Bay has been named as an important Ramsar Wetland for wading birds and their habitat is designated by the blue sections of our bay. But we cannot consider our bay in isolation because it forms an integral part of the East Asian – Australasian Flyway. Waders that live in Moreton Bay fly as far afield as Russia and Alaska to breed before returning home to Moreton Bay – distances of up to 17,000km to and from their breeding grounds!

The East Asian – Australasian Flyway