Lady Julia Percy Island, known as ''Deen Maar'' or ''Dhinmar'' in the

Gunditjmara language Dhauwurd Wurrung is a term used for a group of languages spoken by various groups of the Gunditjmara people of the Western District of Victoria, Australia. Keerray Woorroong (also spelt Girai Wurrung and variants) is regarded by some as a sepa ...

, lies off the coast, in the

Barwon South West The Barwon South West is an economic rural region located in the southwestern part of Victoria, Australia. The Barwon South West region stretches from the tip of the Queenscliff Heads to the border of South Australia. It is home to Victoria� ...

region of

Victoria, Australia Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state with a land area of , the second most populated state (after New South Wales) with a population of over 6.5 million, and the most densely populated state in A ...

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 waterw ...

. The island is an

unincorporated area An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either hav ...

under the direct administration of the government of Victoria.

Description

It is south-south-west of Yambuk, and south-west of

Port Fairy Port Fairy (historically known as Belfast) is a coastal town in south-western Victoria, Australia. It lies on the Princes Highway in the Shire of Moyne, west of Warrnambool and west of Melbourne, at the point where the Moyne River enters the ...

. The island is about in length by in width, with an area of , comprising a plateau, varying in height from

asl American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is express ...

, surrounded by cliffs, rock platforms and reefs. It contains an important seal breeding colony. It has a long history of human exploitation, which has drastically affected its vegetation communities, though it is now protected as a State Faunal Reserve. It is listed on Australia's

Register of the National Estate The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. Phasing out began in 2003, when the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Herita ...

. It is best viewed from The Crags or Yambuk Lake, both of which are in the Yambuk area.

History

''Deen Maar'' was well known to the

Gunditjmara people The Gunditjmara or Gunditjamara, also known as Dhauwurd Wurrung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of southwestern Victoria. They are the traditional owners of the areas now encompassing Warrnambool, Port Fairy, Woolsthorpe and Portland. Thei ...

; it is believed that the spirits of the dead were conveyed across the sea to the island from a cave called Tarnwirring ("the flowing of the wind") at the top of a rocky sea cliff. The island was also known as ''Tirngoona'', meaning "where the sun go away longa night". The island was given the name "Lady Julia’s Island" in 1800 by Lt James Grant after either the wife or daughter of

Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland Lieutenant General Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland (14 August 174210 July 1817) was an officer in the British army and later a British peer. He participated in the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Long Island during t ...

. In 1802

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 ...

expanded the name to ''Lady Julia Percy's Island'' as he sailed past on his ship the . Also in 1802,

Nicolas Baudin Nicolas Thomas Baudin (; 17 February 1754 – 16 September 1803) was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer, most notable for his explorations in Australia and the southern Pacific. Biography Early career Born a comm ...

sailed past the island in his ship the '' Géographe'', and recorded the island as ''Ile aux Alouettes'', a name that has not persisted. During the early 19th century, sealing took place with sealing gangs living on the island often for months at a time. There are two graves on the island – one of a sealer buried in 1822, and one of a man named Hardman buried in 1828 by Captain Wishart of the ''Fairy''.

Guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. ...

was mined on the island for fertiliser until 1861, being transported to Port Fairy in barges. In January 1936 a scientific expedition from

Melbourne University The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

's McCoy Society visited the island for six weeks and carried out a comprehensive ecological survey.Jones, 1936 In the waters on the western side of Lady Julia Percy Island lies pieces of a RAAF Avro Anson aircraft. On 15 February 1944, Avro Anson AW-878 of 2 Air Observer's School (2 A.O.S.) took off from Mount Gambier airfield in South Australia at 0800L hours on 15 February 1944 to carry out a radius of action navigation exercise. They were to fly from Mount Gambier to Douglas Point, radius of action to Lady Julia Percy Island, radius of action to Douglas Point and then back to Mount Gambier. At 1230L hours by which time the aircraft had not returned to base, overdue signals were sent out. At 1300L hours a search was carried out over the route of the exercise and at 1430L hours part of the main plane of the aircraft was sighted on Lady Julia Percy Island. A fishing boat searched in the vicinity of the island that evening and passed through small pieces of wreckage strewn over about 3 miles. A further search by boat was carried out the next morning in the same area which resulted in the recovery from the sea and the island of the port and starboard wingtips, the port aileron, the door to the gunner's cockpit, portion of a main spar, the top cover of a fuel tank bay and a Mae West. The top cover of the fuel tank bay had the number AW-878 in pencil on the underneath side and the Mae West was identified as having been drawn and signed for by Flight Sergeant MacLellan on 15 February 1944. The bodies of the 4 crew members were never located. Those crew members presumed to have lost their lives in this tragic accident were: Flight Sergeant James Henry MacLellan (410684) Pilot; Flight Sergeant Dennis Leslie Baulderstone (416712); LAC Norman Thomas Kruck (433368); and LAC Brian Carter Ladyman (436921).

Environment

Geology

Formed some seven million years ago, the island is much older than other volcanoes in the region, and is also unusual in being built by both submarine and terrestrial eruptions. It provides exposures of internal volcanic structure, including a volcanic vent. Six successive lava flows can be seen in the coastal cliffs. It is Australia’s only off-shore volcano and the only large

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90% of a ...

island off the coast of western Victoria. Lady Julia Percy Island is considered part of the

Newer Volcanics Province The Newer Volcanics Province is a geological area which is a volcanic field, formed by the East Australia hotspot across south-eastern Australia. It covers an area of , with over 400 small shield volcanoes and volcanic vents. The area contains t ...

— this polycyclic volcano erupted in two phases, at 7.80 ± 0.08 Ma and 6.22 ± 0.06 Ma

Flora

With regard to the flora,

Frederic Wood Jones Frederic Wood Jones FRS (23 January 1879 – 29 September 1954), usually referred to as Wood Jones, was a British observational naturalist, embryologist, anatomist and anthropologist, who spent considerable time in Australia. Biography Jones ...

said in 1936 of the island, following his leadership of the 1936 McCoy Society expedition:

"A century ago it was covered with a dense, almost impenetrable, growth of the mixed bushy scrub that characterizes certain parts of the coast of the adjacent mainland. Some sixty years ago this dense scrub was still standing over the major portion of the island; but to-day the whole of the plateau is devoid of any growth more majestic than bracken fern and thistles. The whole plateau is, at present, a windswept area, clothed only by vegetation knee-high at the best, and at the worst, by loose volcanic soil or bare rock. This denudation of forest cover is due to human interference, for pigs were at one time turned down on the island, rabbits were liberated and are still living in their thousands, and sealers, fishermen and guano workers have cut down and burned the stunted and wind-blown trees that formerly covered the island."

The landscape of the island's plateau is now bleak and windswept. It lacks trees and is still largely covered with

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and ...

es and

bracken Bracken (''Pteridium'') is a genus of large, coarse ferns in the family Dennstaedtiaceae. Ferns (Pteridophyta) are vascular plants that have alternating generations, large plants that produce spores and small plants that produce sex cells (eg ...

on thin black soil. The dominant vegetation communities are grassland and closed fernland. The vulnerable Shore Spleenwort (''Asplenium obtusatum'') still survives there.

Fauna

The island is one of four

Australian fur seal The brown fur seal (''Arctocephalus pusillus''), also known as the Cape fur seal, South African fur seal and Australian fur seal, is a species of fur seal. Description The brown fur seal is the largest and most robust member of the fur seals. ...

breeding colonies in Victoria and, with an estimated 27,000 seals, is the largest such colony in Australia. It is occasionally visited by

Australian sea lion The Australian sea lion (''Neophoca cinerea''), also known as the Australian sea-lion or Australian sealion, is a species of sea lion that is the only endemic pinniped in Australia. It is currently monotypic in the genus '' Neophoca'', with the ...

s and

southern elephant seal The southern elephant seal (''Mirounga leonina'') is one of two species of elephant seals. It is the largest member of the clade Pinnipedia and the order Carnivora, as well as the largest extant marine mammal that is not a cetacean. It gets its ...

Pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus s ...

s and

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit specie ...

s were previously introduced but have since disappeared or been eradicated. The island is home to breeding

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 l ...

s (2000 pairs),

common diving-petrel The common diving petrel (''Pelecanoides urinatrix''), also known as the smaller diving petrel or simply the diving petrel, is a diving petrel, one of four very similar auk-like small petrels of the southern oceans. It is native to South Atlanti ...

s (1000 pairs),

fairy prion The fairy prion (''Pachyptila turtur'') is a small seabird with the standard prion plumage of blue-grey upperparts with a prominent dark "M" marking and white underneath. The sexes are alike. This is a small prion of the low subantarctic and sub ...

s (1000 pairs), and

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 ...

s (15,000 pairs). White's skink is the only reptile present. The surrounding waters are visited by

great white shark The great white shark (''Carcharodon carcharias''), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or simply great white, is a species of large Lamniformes, mackerel shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major ocean ...

s.Australian Heritage Database

Access

Access to Lady Julia Percy Island itself is restricted, and landing is by permit only. However, boat cruises from Port Fairy to the waters around the island are popular; they allow people to see the seal colony and watch whales and seabirds on the way.

References

, cited in Bird (2006) The second wife of

was Frances Julia (nee Burrell) (1758-1820). Their third daughter was Lady Julia Percy (1783-1812). (Lodge 1839).

External links

Visit Lady Julia Percy Island By Boat Charter
{{Authority control Unincorporated areas of Victoria (state) Islands of Victoria (state) Nature reserves in Victoria (state) Bass Strait Volcanoes of Victoria (state) Western District (Victoria) Barwon South West (region) Polygenetic volcanoes Seal hunting