Monkey Mia

The day dawned to rain. Easily our wettest day in prospect, with heavy skies, and rain overnight. Still, today was the day for the Monkey Mia dolphin experience, and we were not to be denied, so after some soggy bacon on the barbecue, off we went.

Monkey Mia is a resort of sorts that grew out of a beach shack type place in the 60s. There is nothing else there, and it is about 25km from Denham, the nearest town. The resort has grown with the fame of the dolphins, but that side of it now has a visitor centre and is managed by the Department of Conservation, similarly to National and Marine Parks.

Until the 1990s, the entire activity was unmanaged and large numbers of dolphins consumed huge amounts of fish, with people swimming amongst the feeding dolphins. That came to an end when a report commissioned found that the infants born to feeding females had a high mortality rate, being dependent on handouts. Unlike many animals, dolphins must learn to feed from their parents, and the method learned is dependent on local conditions. Parents looking for handouts are neither teaching their children, nor setting a good example. The behaviour of the animals became aggressive too, and so a management program was put in place.

Only five dolphins are fed. They are all well-identified and named. The five dolphins come from three family groups, with one group into its third generation from the original from the 1960s. Only females are fed. The dolphins only get about a tenth of their food from a single feeding session, which may only last ten minutes. Only three feeding sessions a day are held, all in the morning, and any one dolphin may only get one quarter of its diet from the handouts from its named bucket. No cheating! The dolphins must not be touched and the interaction is strictly regulated.

Quite apart from all of the rules, the dolphins are show-offs, and love the attention and are quite happy to cruise up and down for close inspection. The females, once mature, are always either pregnant or bringing up a calf to age 4 or so. The feeding females usually bring in their newborns within a day or so of giving birth, and so the family trees and birthdays are easily documented. Only offspring of feeding females will join the feeding band, but since dolphins live for around 40 years, most return to an entirely wild existence. Since there are thousands of dolphins in Shark Bay, the perceived effect on the wild population is deemed small.

Since the feeding sessions are so tightly regulated, only a small number from the crowd are actually chosen for the privilege. Louis and Elliot were both lucky to be chosen. We were probably aided in that luck by a relatively small crowd, caused perhaps by the lousy weather, which broke over Monkey Mia in time for our session. The visit was completed by a tour of the visitor centre and a National Geographic video of the wild behaviour of dolphins, filmed in part in Shark Bay.

On the way back to Denham, we would have visited Francois Peron national Park, but the rain we had overnight and in the morning was enough to close the road. Perhaps tomorrow.

The doubtful weather chased us indoors, so the Shark Bay World Heritage Visitor Centre was a logical choice. It covered the physical, cultural and natural features which attracted World Heritage listing, as well as the Aboriginal, and early European investigation from the 1600s into the 1900s, and the change from a pastoral to a conservation land use.

One of the major features of this area is a high-security electrified vermin-proof fence that effectively isolates the whole Shark Bay land area. This is feasible because all of that vast area is connected to the rest of the mainland by a narrow, 3km wide neck. The fence is 2.4m high and extends into the ocean on either end. There is even a barking dog sound triggered whenever a beam over the grid is broken in an attempt to stop feral cats and foxes from crossing into the area. This area has then been largely cleared of feral animals to allow the recovery and in some cases reintroduction of endangered native animals. This project “Eden” is so far showing some impressive results.

The weather cleared to a blue sky in the afternoon, although patchy. It didn’t allow our closed road to reopen, but was sufficient to allow us to explore the local wind generators and the bay. The wind generators contribute up to 1MW to the power requirements of the area, and saves and estimated 625000 litres of diesel each year.