Little Dog Island is a square, flat granite island, with an area of 83 ha, 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 ...

. It is part of Tasmania’s

Great Dog Island Group The Great Dog Island, also known as Big Dog Island, and part of the Great Dog Group within the Furneaux Group, is a granite island, located in Bass Strait, lying south of the Flinders Island and north of the Cape Barren Island, in Tasmania, ...

, lying in eastern

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

Flinders Flinders may refer to: Places Antarctica * Flinders Peak, near the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula Australia New South Wales * Flinders County, New South Wales * Shellharbour Junction railway station, Shellharbour * Flinders, New South Wa ...

and Cape Barren Islands in the Furneaux Group. It is a game reserve. It was previously grazed, a usage now ceased. The island is part of the

Franklin Sound Islands Important Bird Area The Franklin Sound Islands Important Bird Area comprises several small islands, with a collective total area of 1725 ha, lying in Franklin Sound between the much larger Flinders Island to the north and Cape Barren Island to the south, in th ...

, identified as such 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 ...

because it holds over 1% of the world populations of six bird species.

History

Bass Strait sealer, John Maynard, and Margery, the widow of sealer James Munro, were found here with their families in 1861, probably for the mutton bird harvest.

Fauna

Recorded breeding seabird and wader 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 ...

(over half a million pairs) and pied oystercatcher. The sooty oystercatcher, Caspian tern and white-fronted tern have bred on an isolated rock 200 m north of the island. The swamp harrier has bred on the island.

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 present include the metallic skink and tiger snake. The growling grass frog has been recorded.Brothers, Nigel; Pemberton, David; Pryor, Helen; & Halley, Vanessa. (2001). ''Tasmania’s Offshore Islands: seabirds and other natural features''. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery: Hobart.

References

Furneaux Group Important Bird Areas of Tasmania {{Tasmania-geo-stub

History

Fauna

See also

References