The Moha Moha - a Sandy Cape Curiousity

Miss Lovell's drawing of the Sea Monster ( William Saville-Kent, The Great Barrier Reef of Australia: Its Products and Potentialities (London: W.H. Allen), 1893 found in France, R.L. 2017 Imaginary Sea Monsters and the Real Environmental Threats)

Four families lived near Sandy Cape lighthouse at the end of the 19th century. Miss Shirley Lovell was the Sandy Cape School Mistress.

On April the 7th, 1891 she reported capturing a furtive glance of  a sea monster  of some 10 metres in length on the edge of the water near Sandy Cape .The Chronicle details her description of the event :
"I was, while walking on the Sandy Island beach, admiring the stillness of the sea, it being a dead calm, when my eye caught sight of the head and neck of a creature I had never seen before.  I went to the edge of the water and saw a huge animal, lying at full length, which was not at all disturbed by my close proximity to it, enabling me to observe the glossy skin of the head and neck, smooth and shiny as satin.  Its great mouth was wide open all the time it was out of the water.  In about a quarter of an hour or so it put its head and neck slowly into the sea, closing its jaws as it did so.  I then saw what a long neck it had, as it moved round in a half circle, and also perceived that the head and neck were moving under a carapace.  When the head was pointing out to sea it rose up, putting a long wedge-shaped fish-like tail out of the water over the dry shore, parallel to myself, and not more than five feet from me, not touching the sand, but elevated.  I could have stood under the flukes of its tail." 

Miss Lovell wrote to Dr. Ramsay (Sydney) "to ask if the Moha was the same creature as the great turtle of New Guinea of which the Sydney Museum possesses a skeleton, but he said in reply that it was quite unlike, and calls the Moha a tortoise which I think is correct. Dr. Günther  (of the British Natural History Museum) would give £100 for the entire animal, £50 for part and a fair price for the head and neck, sun-dried.” 

In July, she reported seeing it again (Hervey Bay Highschool, 1988) and further described the creature "the jaws are about eighteen inches in length; the head and neck greenish white, with large white spots on the neck and a band of white round a very black eye and round the upper and lower jaws. Tail about 12 feet, the fish part wedge-shaped and fin of chocolate brown, then beautiful silver shading to white scales the size of a thumbnail"

1988, A Lighthearted View of Hervey Bay states she backed up her sighting with testimony from the Aborigines, who claimed it attacked their camp.

The curator of the Australian Museum was sceptical so she wrote to an English journal who published her full account.

The tip of Fraser Island does sit on the edge of the continental shelf so gets very deep very quickly..

What do you think she saw?

A sculpture of the Moha Moha by Alan Peebles can be found at Bill Fraser Park Torquay, Hervey Bay.

References:
France, R.L. (2107) Imaginary Sea Monsters and Real Environmental Threats from International Review of Environmental History, Volume 3, Issue 1 Edited by James Beattie, Published 2017 by ANU Press, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia retrieved from ANU press on the 24th June, 2019.

Hervey Bay High School (1988) 1988 - A lighthearted overview of Hervey Bay's History - The Fraser Island Sea Monster

Maryborough Chronicle 22nd September, 1894 retrieved from Trove

Further Information from our Library collection
Moha Moha creatures of Hervey Bay [videorecording].Peebles,Alan.2005.
The Moha Moha,a sea creature,last seen way back in history,has been brought back to Hervey Bay in the form of a symbolic sculpture.Commissioned by the Hervey Bay City Council and created by art collective Blunt Chisel,a trio of artists in wood,this DVD shows the history and erection of the sculpture.

The Moha Moha can be found in Bill Fraser Park, Hervey Bay.

Tags#mohamoha #seamonster #sandycape #FraserIsland