RESORT SPOTLIGHT TANGALOOMA ISLAND RESORT
Moreton Island Adventures by Matt Taylor
For most Kiwis, southeast Queensland getaways revolve around two destinations, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. But roughly in the middle of these two holiday hotspots lies a remarkable island that flies under the radar. Just over an hour by ferry from Brisbane, lies Moreton Island. The third biggest sand island in the world and home to Tangalooma Island Resort.
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islandtime Summer 2020
A whale of a tale. Tangalooma Island Resort operates one of Queensland’s largest whale watching operations. Each year, many thousands of visitors have the chance to marvel at these graceful creatures in their natural habitat. Yet this could easily have been a different story. Between 1952 and 1962, Tangalooma was home to the Southern Hemisphere’s largest land based whaling station. In our clean, green, eco-friendly world, it’s hard to imagine the scale of this legalised hunting, but in 10 years, over 6200 humpback whales were killed and processed at Tangalooma. The local whale population was decimated - to the point that whales in the region were nearly wiped out. Thankfully fate stepped in. First vegetable oil was introduced as an alternative ingredient in many of the products that used whale oil. This caused a significant drop in prices. Combined with dwindling whale numbers (in 1962 only 68 out the 600 whale quota was filled) the operation was no longer viable. In 1966, the government outlawed whaling. Since this ban – the whale numbers have bounced back – it’s how estimated that the East Coast Humpback Whale population sits between 20-30,000.
