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Doubtful Islands are a group of three small 
island
An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...
s located approximately offshore of Point Hood and approximately east of Bremer Bay Bremer may refer to:
People
*Bremer (surname)
*Bremer Ehrler (born 1914), American politician
* Bremer (born 1997), Brazilian footballer
Places
;Australia
*Bremer Bay, Western Australia
*Bremer Marine Park
*Bremer Island
* Bremer River (disambigua ...
in Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
.
The islands occupy an area of approximately and are found at the southern end of Doubtful Islands Bay in the Great Southern region.
The islands were named by George Vancouver
Captain George Vancouver (22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a British Royal Navy officer best known for his 1791–1795 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what a ...
in 1791, the name derived from his being doubtful that these were islands at all. Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland. He is also credited as being the first person to u ...
confirmed that the group were islands in 1802 while on expedition in the area.
Two whaling stations were established around the islands in 1837, one by George Cheyne and the other by Thomas Booker Sherratt.
John Thomas, the owner of a whaling fleet based at Cheyne Beach, often hunted for right whale
Right whales are three species of large baleen whales of the genus ''Eubalaena'': the North Atlantic right whale (''E. glacialis''), the North Pacific right whale (''E. japonica'') and the Southern right whale (''E. australis''). They are clas ...
s around Doubtful Islands in October and November in the early 1860s. Another whaler named John MacKenzie lost two of his crew off Doubtful Islands when attacked by a small whale.
In 2003, nine badly gashed sperm whale
The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the sperm whale famil ...
s were washed up on reefs near the island. Six of the whales were dead and the others had to be euthanised.
New Zealand fur seals are known to inhabit the island although the population has nearly halved between 1999 and 2011 despite an overall population increase along the south coast of Western Australia.
References
{{coord, 34, 22, 37, S, 119, 36, 40, E, display=title, region:AU-WA_type:isle_source:GNS-enwiki Nature reserves in Western Australia Islands of the Great Southern (Western Australia) Whaling stations in Australia