A MANGROVE lined beach, teeming with marine life and inaccessible by land without crossing private property, is the site of a graveyard.

There are no headstones or flowers, just empty bottles, rubbish and bones.

The indigenous community see the site they have dubbed "turtle graveyard", south of Port Douglas, as a serious reminder of an issue casting a shadow of shame over traditional hunters.

To them, it is the obvious site of a well set-up black market trade.

Indigenous community member John Alvoen first saw the turtle graveyard two years ago when he cut through a friend’s cane farm to take his children to a beach he knew about.

"There have been anything from five turtle shells here, which obviously were all butchered at the same time," he said.

On yesterday's visit, Mr Alvoen also found what he said were the vertebrae of a dugong - an animal the Kuku Yalanji elders banned from being hunted years ago, but was openly known to be targeted by the group.

Since first seeing the graveyard, Mr Alvoen has clued on to an operation, which he said was widely known about but not acted on.

He blames a lack of resources and help from the Government as reasons for not being able to tackle the lucrative business.

"We've seen them come down here at night," he said.

"They pull over and turn their lights off and wait for a bit to make sure they're not being watched. Then they put their parkers on and drive through someone else's property down to the beach and set up camp, leaving just before daylight.

"It's just wrong - like jumping someone else's fence and grabbing their chickens."

Mr Alvoen said the finely-tuned operation, run by out-of-towners, included at least two car loads of people, with one lot camping on the beach while another group spotlight in a tinny.

They bring the turtle to the beach, where it is quickly slaughtered before shipping the meat to Yule Point where it is handed to another group, who take it away for sale.

"There needs to be more policing but we don’t have anyone here since the funding through parks and wildlife was cut a few years ago," he said.

"While I don't agree with it, they were pretty quick to jump on the other fellas (hunting turtle at Low Isles) so I can't understand why nothing has been done about this."

Share this article