TRADITIONAL owners say they will use more than $50,000 in secured state funding to better protect turtle and dugong populations in the Far North.

uru-Gulu Gungandji tribe are in regular meetings with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to look at new management measures for their sea country, including the option of imposing strict permits on traditional hunting.

Tourism operators and tourists reported at least 14 turtles had been killed at Green Island in the past month and feared the overkill would wipe out populations for the area.

Last month, tourists were also confronted by several speared and gutted turtle carcasses on the beach of Green Island.

Guru-Gulu Gungandji elder Robert Sands said he did not support the practice and called for hunters doing the wrong thing to be prosecuted.

"We very strongly oppose that sort of activity," Mr Sands said.

"I wish those young fellas would stop using traditional hunting as an excuse to do the wrong thing – it’s appalling."

He said traditional hunting should not occur around the island as the area was only ever used as a ceremonial site.

Yarraburra Gunggandji elder Ricco Noble said his people also did not support the inappropriate killing of marine mammals and had previously filed complaints with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service about rogue hunters netting dugongs and turtles in Yarrabah bay.

Prosecute illegal Green Island turtle hunters, says elder

He claimed the men pictured in yesterday’s The Cairns Post were traditional owners of the sea country and were not hunting turtles but instead were at the island for recreational purposes.

He said the men in the boat had witnessed rogue hunters cutting the fins of turtles on the beach of Green Island.

"We don’t support the way they are killed and don’t usually hunt in that (Green Island) area, but instead usually in the reefs around there, such as Arlington reef," Mr Noble said.

"It’s a handful of people doing the wrong thing."

The Gunggandji PBC Aboriginal Corporation secured a $50,000 Sea Country Partnerships grant in the latest round of GBRMPA funding to address critical issues around sustainable use, management and monitoring of turtles and dugongs and traditional fisheries (fish and crabs).

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