The George Rocks, also historically known as King George's Rocks, is part of the
Waterhouse Island Group, a group of three adjacent uninhabited
granite islets and associated
reefs with a combined area of , situated in Banks Strait, part 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 ...
, lying close to the north-eastern coast of
Tasmania, Australia.
[Brothers, Nigel; Pemberton, David; Pryor, Helen; & Halley, Vanessa. (2001). ''Tasmania’s Offshore Islands: seabirds and other natural features''. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery: Hobart. ]
Seal hunting took place early in the 19th century.
Captain James Kelly took seals there in 1816, and Thomas Tucker is recorded sealing on the rocks in 1827. Captain Kelly applied for a lease to establish a bay
whaling station at a small sandy beach on the west side of the largest of the rocks in 1841
Other islands in the Waterhouse Group include
Ninth
In music, a ninth is a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a second.
Like the second, the interval of a ninth is classified as a dissonance in common practice tonality. Since a ninth is an octave larger than a second, its ...
,
Tenth,
Waterhouse Waterhouse may refer to:
People
*Waterhouse (surname)
Places
* Waterhouse, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
* Waterhouse Island (disambiguation)
* Waterhouse district of Kingston, Jamaica
** Waterhouse F.C., a football club based in the Waterho ...
,
Little Waterhouse,
Maclean,
Baynes,
Gygnet,
Swan
Swans are birds of the family (biology), family Anatidae within the genus ''Cygnus''. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form t ...
,
Foster
Foster may refer to:
People
* Foster (surname)
* Foster Brooks (1912–2001), American actor
* Foster Moreau (born 1997), American football player
* Foster Sarell (born 1998), American football player
* John Foster Dulles (1888–1959), American ...
,
Little Swan,
St Helens and
Paddys islands and
Bird Rock islet.
[
]
Fauna
Recorded breeding seabird species are 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 ...
, white-faced storm-petrel, silver gull, black-faced cormorant
The black-faced cormorant (''Phalacrocorax fuscescens''), also known as the black-faced shag, is a medium-sized member of the cormorant family. Upperparts, including facial skin and bill, are black, with white underparts. It is endemic to coas ...
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 ...
. Introduced mammal
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...
s are rabbits and rats (it was announced in February 2021 that all the rats had been eradicated). The metallic skink is present.[
]
See also
* List of islands of Tasmania
References
Islands of North East Tasmania
Waterhouse Island group
Seal hunting
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