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The Cat Island, part of the Babel Group within the Furneaux Group, is a unpopulated granite island, located in
Seabirds and waders recorded as breeding on the island include
Bass Strait
Bass Strait () is a strait separating the island state of Tasmania from the Australian mainland (more specifically the coast of Victoria, with the exception of the land border across Boundary Islet). The strait provides the most direct waterwa ...
, lying off the east coast of Flinders Island, Tasmania, south of Victoria, in south-eastern 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 ...
.
Cat Island is part of the Babel Island Group 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 ...
.
Fauna
Seabirds and waders recorded as breeding on the island include little penguin
The little penguin (''Eudyptula minor'') is a species of penguin from New Zealand. They are commonly known as little blue penguins or blue penguins owing to their slate-blue plumage and are also known by their Māori name .
The Australian lit ...
, 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 A ...
, silver gull, Pacific gull, 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 ...
, sooty oystercatcher, pied oystercatcher and Australasian gannet. Resident reptile
Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...
s include White's skink and tiger snake. The rakali has also been recorded on the island.
The historically important breeding colony of Australasian gannets, with an estimated 5,000-10,000 birds at the beginning of the 20th century, declined to extinction by the mid-1980s as a result of, at first, human intrusion, followed by fires, disturbance and, finally, predation by white-bellied sea-eagles.Brothers, Nigel; Pemberton, David; Pryor, Helen; & Halley, Vanessa. (2001). ''Tasmania’s Offshore Islands: seabirds and other natural features''. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery: Hobart.
See also
* List of islands of TasmaniaReferences
Furneaux Group Protected areas of Tasmania Important Bird Areas of Tasmania Islands of North East Tasmania Islands of Bass Strait {{Tasmania-geo-stub