Bedout Island is a small

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n island in the eastern Indian Ocean. It lies 42 km offshore from Larrey Point and the mouth of the De Grey River, and 96 km north-east of Port Hedland, on the Pilbara coast of north-west Western Australia.

Description

Bedout is a low and undulating, 31 ha sandy cay on limestone bedrock, heavily vegetated with beach spinifex. It has an arid climate, an annual average rainfall of 300 mm, and experiences occasional tropical cyclones. There is a navigational beacon in the centre of the island. There are three listed

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately ...

s in the surrounding waters, all of vessels wrecked between 1890 and 1912. At some time in the past

black rat The black rat (''Rattus rattus''), also known as the roof rat, ship rat, or house rat, is a common long-tailed rodent of the stereotypical rat genus ''Rattus'', in the subfamily Murinae. It likely originated in the Indian subcontinent, but is n ...

s were inadvertently introduced, probably by visiting pearling vessels in the late 19th century, but were eradicated in 1991.BirdLife International.

Status

The island is an A-class nature reserve, managed by the Department of Environment and Conservation. It is part of the Western Australian Coastal Islands (Dixon Island to Cape Keraudren) site which is listed on Australia's

Register of the National Estate The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. Phasing out began in 2003, when the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heritag ...

.Fugro. It is also classified by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

because of its seabird breeding colonies.

Birds

The island supports over 1,000 nesting pairs of brown boobies, making it one of the largest colonies in Western Australia. This species regularly incorporates anthropogenic debris into its nests, presumably mistaking items for nesting materials, including on Bedout Island where around 5% of >700 nests surveyed in 2016 and 2017 contained debris (primarily hard plastic fragments, rope, and fishing line). Bedout Island is also home to over 1,000 nesting pairs each of

common noddies The brown noddy or common noddy (''Anous stolidus'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. The largest of the noddies, it can be told from the closely related black noddy by its larger size and plumage, which is dark brown rather than black. The b ...

and

crested tern The greater crested tern Retrieved 28 February 2012 (''Thalasseus bergii''), also called crested tern or swift tern, is a tern in the family Laridae that nests in dense colonies on coastlines and islands in the tropical and subtropical Old World ...

s, 500–1,000 lesser frigatebirds, 100-500 masked boobies, as well as lesser crested, roseate and

sooty tern The sooty tern (''Onychoprion fuscatus'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. It is a bird of the tropical oceans, returning to land only to breed on islands throughout the equatorial zone. Taxonomy The sooty tern was described by Carl Linnaeu ...

s, silver gulls and white-bellied sea eagles. Many of these do not breed elsewhere in the Pilbara. The main breeding season comprises the winter months from May to September.

Notes

References

* * {{coord, 19, 34, 40, S, 119, 05, 40, E, display=title, region:AU_type:isle Islands of the Pilbara Nature reserves in Western Australia Important Bird Areas of Western Australia Seabird colonies