North Stradbroke Island

My first field for my Masters degree was to North Stradbroke Island which is a sand mining island off the coast of Brisbane for 8 days. We were looking into the effectiveness of the rehabilitation done by the mining company on previously mined land. We used ants as bio-indicators and looked at the vegetation levels. Surprisingly the mining company had done a good job, but there were issues.

There has been a long controversy over non relinquishment of land where the leases have expired. The Quandamooka people who have lived on this island for generations are not allowed on these properties even though most of these properties are sacred aboriginal sites. I had the good fortune to meet one of the leaders from this tribe and some of the stories he told us reminded me of the fear and marginalisation the Tamils had to endure during the civil war back in Sri Lanka.

We had a wonderful time on the island watching the Humpback whale migration and using drones to monitor dolphins. We were only 20 feet from them on land, but due to previous Bull Shark attacks on humans we weren’t allowed to swim with them, hence the drones.

We also chased Dugongs on boats to obtain skin samples for DNA analysis. We originally had planned to jump into the water and obtain biometric measurements from them, but once again our lecturer was nervous about letting us jump in as the Bull Shark numbers were high due to the Whale Migration so we didn’t take the risk. While on the water we saw Green Turtles and Stingrays swimming all around our boat.