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Murat Marine Park
Murat Marine Park (formerly Murat Commonwealth Marine Reserve) is a marine protected area located in the Great Australian Bight south of South Australia in waters within the Australian Exclusive economic zone to the west of the island group known as the Nuyts Archipelago and ranging in depth from to . It was gazetted in November 2012. It was renamed on 11 October 2017. The marine park includes ecosystems representative of a feature known as the "Great Australian Bight Shelf Transition", two "key ecological features" being "benthic invertebrate communities’’ and "areas important for small pelagic fish", and the feeding areas for the following species - Australian sea lion, great white shark, short-tailed shearwater and Caspian tern. It also provides protection for a submerged reef system known as "Yatala Reef". It is part of a group of Australian marine parks known as the South-west Marine Parks Network. The marine park is classified as an IUCN Category II protect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fowlers Bay, South Australia
Fowlers Bay, formerly known as Yalata, is a bay, town and locality in the Australian state of South Australia located about north-west of the state capital, Adelaide. The town is located on Port Eyre, at the western end of the larger Fowlers Bay. It was named Yalata after Yalata station, established in the 1860s and stretching from the Nullarbor Plain across to near Streaky Bay on the Eyre Peninsula, whose homestead was located on the hill nearby. The name Yalata now belongs to a small Aboriginal community further west, which was also situated on station land. Situated on the Nullarbor Plain, Fowlers Bay was once an active port and a gateway to the western reaches of the continent, but fell into decline in the 1960s and 1970s. However a revitalised tourist industry started bringing more tourists to the town from the 1980s onwards. The southern right whales that frequent the Great Australian Bight were a target of whalers in the past, but now bring sightseers. Large sand dunes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great White Shark
The great white shark (''Carcharodon carcharias''), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or simply great white, is a species of large mackerel shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major oceans. It is notable for its size, with larger female individuals growing to in length and in weight at maturity. However, most are smaller; males measure , and females measure on average. According to a 2014 study, the lifespan of great white sharks is estimated to be as long as 70 years or more, well above previous estimates, making it one of the longest lived cartilaginous fishes currently known. According to the same study, male great white sharks take 26 years to reach sexual maturity, while the females take 33 years to be ready to produce offspring. Great white sharks can swim at speeds of 25 km/h (16 mph) for short bursts and to depths of . The great white shark is an apex predator, as it has no known natural predators other than, on v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protected Areas Established In 2012
Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although the mechanisms for providing protection vary widely, the basic meaning of the term remains the same. This is illustrated by an explanation found in a manual on electrical wiring: Some kind of protection is a characteristic of all life, as living things have evolved at least some protective mechanisms to counter damaging environmental phenomena, such as ultraviolet light. Biological membranes such as bark on trees and skin on animals offer protection from various threats, with skin playing a key role in protecting organisms against pathogens and excessive water loss. Additional structures like scales and hair offer further protection from the elements and from predators, with some animals having features such as spines or camouflage servin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protected Areas Managed By The Australian Government
Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although the mechanisms for providing protection vary widely, the basic meaning of the term remains the same. This is illustrated by an explanation found in a manual on electrical wiring: Some kind of protection is a characteristic of all life, as living things have evolved at least some protective mechanisms to counter damaging environmental phenomena, such as ultraviolet light. Biological membranes such as bark on trees and skin on animals offer protection from various threats, with skin playing a key role in protecting organisms against pathogens and excessive water loss. Additional structures like scales and hair offer further protection from the elements and from predators, with some animals having features such as spines or camouflage servin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South-west Commonwealth Marine Reserves Network Map
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each separated by 90 degrees, and secondarily divided by four ordinal (intercardinal) directions—northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest—each located halfway between two cardinal directions. Some disciplines such as meteorology and navigation further divide the compass with additional azimuths. Within European tradition, a fully defined compass has 32 'points' (and any finer subdivisions are described in fractions of points). Compass points are valuable in that they allow a user to refer to a specific azimuth in a colloquial fashion, without having to compute or remember degrees. Designations The names of the compass point directions follow these rules: 8-wind compass rose * The four cardinal directions are north (N), east (E), s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IUCN Protected Area Categories
IUCN protected area categories, or IUCN protected area management categories, are categories used to classify protected areas in a system developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The enlisting of such areas is part of a strategy being used toward the conservation of the world's natural environment and biodiversity. The IUCN has developed the protected area management categories system to define, record and classify the wide variety of specific aims and concerns when categorising protected areas and their objectives. This categorisation method is recognised on a global scale by national governments and international bodies such as the United Nations and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Categories Category Ia – strict nature reserve A strict nature reserve (IUCN Category Ia) is an area which is protected from all but light human use in order to protect its biodiversity and also possibly its geological/geomorphical features. These areas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Marine Parks
Australian marine parks (formerly Commonwealth marine reserves) are marine protected areas located within Australian waters and are managed by the Australian government. These waters generally extend from three nautical miles off the coast to the outer limit of Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone at 200 nautical miles while marine protected areas located closer in-shore are the responsibility of the states or the Northern Territory. History Under the Howard Government the world’s first Oceans Policy was developed. It included the creation of the Great Australian Bight Marine Park in 1998, greatly increased protection of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and in 2007, established a series of large marine parks in Australia's south-east, now collectively known as the South-east Marine Parks Network. 2012 marine parks In 2012, the Australian government under Labor/Kevin Rudd revealed plans to create the world's largest marine reserve network, made up of five main zones i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reef
A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock outcrops, etc.—but there are also reefs such as the coral reefs of tropical waters formed by biotic processes dominated by corals and coralline algae, and artificial reefs such as shipwrecks and other anthropogenic underwater structures may occur intentionally or as the result of an accident, and sometimes have a designed role in enhancing the physical complexity of featureless sand bottoms, to attract a more diverse assemblage of organisms. Reefs are often quite near to the surface, but not all definitions require this. Earth's largest coral reef system is the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, at a length of over . Biotic There is a variety of biotic reef types, including oyster reefs and sponge reefs, but the most massive and widely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caspian Tern
The Caspian tern (''Hydroprogne caspia'') is a species of tern, with a subcosmopolitan but scattered distribution. Despite its extensive range, it is monotypic of its genus, and has no accepted subspecies. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''hudros'', "water", and Latin ''progne'', "swallow". The specific ''caspia'' is from Latin and, like the English name, refers to the Caspian Sea. Description It is the world's largest tern with a length of , a wingspan of and a weight of . Adult birds have black legs, and a long thick red-orange bill with a small black tip. They have a white head with a black cap and white neck, belly, and tail. The upper wings and back are pale grey; the underwings are pale with dark primary feathers. In-flight, the tail is less forked than other terns, and wingtips are black on the underside. In winter, the black cap is still present (unlike many other terns), but with some white streaking on the forehead. The call is a loud heron-like croak. Distribu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short-tailed Shearwater
The short-tailed shearwater or slender-billed shearwater (''Ardenna tenuirostris''; formerly ''Puffinus tenuirostris''), also called yolla or moonbird, and commonly known as the muttonbird in Australia, is the most abundant seabird species in Australian waters, and is one of the few Australian native birds in which the chicks are commercially harvested. It is a migratory species that breeds mainly on small islands in Bass Strait and Tasmania and migrates to the Northern Hemisphere for the boreal summer. Taxonomy This shearwater appears to be related to the sooty and great shearwaters, which are also blunt-tailed, black-billed species, but its precise relationships are obscure (Austin, 1996; Austin ''et al.'', 2004). These are among the larger species of shearwater, which have been moved to a separate genus, ''Ardenna'' based on a phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA (Penhallurick & Wink, 2004). Ecology Each parent feeds the single chick for 2–3 days and then leaves for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Sea Lion
The Australian sea lion (''Neophoca cinerea''), also known as the Australian sea-lion or Australian sealion, is a species of sea lion that is the only endemic pinniped in Australia. It is currently monotypic in the genus ''Neophoca'', with the extinct Pleistocene New Zealand sea lion ''Neophoca palatina'' the only known congener. With a population estimated at around 14,730 animals, the Wildlife Conservation Act of Western Australia (1950) has listed them as “in need of special protection”. Their Conservation status is listed as endangered. These pinnipeds are specifically known for their abnormal breeding cycles, which are varied between a 5-month breeding cycle and a 17-18 month aseasonal breeding cycle, compared to other pinnipeds which fit into a 12-month reproductive cycle. Females are either silver or fawn with a cream underbelly and males are dark brown with a yellow mane and are bigger than the females. Distribution Australian sea lions are sparsely distributed acro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Director Of National Parks
Director of National Parks is a government-owned corporation of the Government of Australia, Australian government responsible for the management of a portfolio of protected area, terrestrial and marine protected areas proclaimed under the ''Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'' (''EPBC Act''). The agency is a corporation sole. Parks Australia (formerly the Australian Nature Conservation Agency and the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service) is a division of the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment which supports the Director of National Parks in the management of six Commonwealth national parks, the Australian National Botanic Gardens, and Australian marine parks. Legal status and history The Director of National Parks was established under the EPBC Act as a corporation sole, i.e. the corporation is constituted by the person appointed to the office named the Director of National Parks. It was established on 17 July 2000 upon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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