2015-11-10 - P&O Agenda - Item 7, Attach 1 - Historical Ecology of the Noosa Estuary Fisheries

The same source also mentioned the Tewantin oyster banks a few years later:


“Oysters are very plentiful, but are, I am told, gradually being killed by the pearl-
bearing species, which here are of no commercial value. The banks of the river at
Tewantin, for a depth of 12 or 13 feet, are entirely composed of oyster shells, which
have no doubt been accumulated by the blacks, charcoal and stone tomahawks
having been found 6ft below the surface.” Australian Town and Country Journal,
29 Apr 1882.


This location is likely to be the same as the middens referred to by the visitor in
1877, and is along the banks of the river where the present day Council
Chambers are located (pers. comm. George Pearce). The size of this midden, “a
depth of 12 or 13 feet”, and the reported extent of this and other middens in the
wider region; “piles of oyster shells were formerly found for at least 80 miles along
the range” (Brisbane Courier, 14 Nov 1924), highlight the past abundance of
oysters and the significance of this resource to the Kabi Kabi Traditional Owners.
Given that these middens were being mined for road material by the 1870s, it is
possible that these middens were once much larger. The extent of resource use is
further highlighted by reports that a navigable channel had been formed at
Tewantin due to oysters being frequently thrown up from the riverbed:


“This place happens to be where the blacks appear to have camped in large
numbers at sometime or other; the place is stony, and there are large quantities of
oysters on the stones or were at one time […] to get at the oysters the blacks from
time to time have taken the stones and oysters out of the bed of the lake, and
thrown some of them on the bank and some of them about 40 feet from this
platform, and in the course of very many years by so shifting those stones and shells
have caused a channel a few feet deep, and this is where […] the Culgoa goes
alongside to discharge her freight.” Maryborough Chronicle, 1 Nov 1877.


A local resident also highlighted the existence of a midden on Hay’s Island during
the 1960s, just prior to development of the area:




                                                                                        18