The Furneaux Group is a group of approximately 100

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 at the eastern end of

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 ...

, between

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

and

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

, Australia. The islands were named after British navigator

Tobias Furneaux Captain Tobias Furneaux (21 August 173518 September 1781) was an English navigator and Royal Navy officer, who accompanied James Cook on his second voyage of exploration. He was one of the first men to circumnavigate the world in both directions ...

, who sighted the eastern side of these islands after leaving Adventure Bay in 1773 on his way to New Zealand to rejoin

Captain James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and ...

. Navigator

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 ...

was the first European to explore the Furneaux Islands group, in the in 1798, and later that year in the . The largest islands in the group are

Flinders Island Flinders Island, the largest island in the Furneaux Group, is a island in the Bass Strait, northeast of the island of Tasmania. Flinders Island was the place where the last remnants of aboriginal Tasmanian population were exiled by the colo ...

Cape Barren Island Cape Barren Island, officially truwana / Cape Barren Island, is a island in the Bass Strait, off the north east coast of Tasmania, Australia. It is the second largest island of the Furneaux Group; Flinders Island lies to the north, with the s ...

, and Clarke Island. The group contains five settlements: Killiecrankie, Emita, Lady Barron, Cape Barren Island, and

Whitemark Whitemark is a rural residential locality on Flinders Island in the local government area (LGA) of Flinders in the North-east LGA region of Tasmania. The 2016 census recorded a population of 301 for the state suburb of Whitemark. It is the mai ...

on Flinders Island, which serves as the administrative centre of the

Flinders Council Flinders Council is a local government body in Tasmania, encompassing the Furneaux Group and nearby islands of Bass Strait, in the north-east of the state. Flinders is classified as a rural local government area and has a population of 987, w ...

. There are also some small farming properties on the remote islands. After seals were discovered there in 1798, the Furneaux Group of islands became the most intensively exploited sealing ground in Bass Strait. A total of 29 islands in the Furneaux Group have been found to have some tangible link with sealing in the 19th century. The Aboriginal matriarch, Dolly Dalrymple, was born on the Furneaux Islands. Her mother was one of two Aboriginal women who had been kidnapped from northern Tasmania by the sealer George Briggs. King Island, at the western end of Bass Strait, is not a part of the group.

Administration

The Furneaux Group forms the

together with the groups of islands to the northwest: the

Kent Group The Kent Group are a grouping of six granite islands located in Bass Strait, north-west of the Furneaux Group in Tasmania, Australia. Collectively, the group is comprised within the Kent Group National Park. The islands were named Kent's Gro ...

, Hogan Island Group,

Curtis Group Curtis Island is a granite island, with an area of 150 ha, in south-eastern Australia. It is part of Tasmania’s Curtis Group, lying in northern Bass Strait between the Furneaux Group and Wilsons Promontory in Victoria. It is a nature ...

, and the Tasmanian part of the Wilsons Promontory Islands.

Islands in the Group

Geology

The islands contain granite from the

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...

period, as well as unconsolidated limestone and sand from

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

periods. During the last ice age, a land bridge joined Tasmania to the Australian mainland through this group of islands.

References

External links

Birds of the Furneaux Islands

{{Authority control Seal hunting

Administration

Islands in the Group

Geology

See also

References

External links