Pelican Island is an island, with an area of including an associated reef joined to it at low tide, 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 Vansittart Island Group, 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. Until 1984 it was leased for grazing.
[ 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.
Fauna
Recorded breeding seabird and wader species are 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, Pacific gull, Caspian tern and sooty oystercatcher. An unidentified skink is present and there is evidence of the presence of feral cats.[Brothers, Nigel; Pemberton, David; Pryor, Helen; & Halley, Vanessa. (2001). ''Tasmania’s Offshore Islands: seabirds and other natural features''. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery: Hobart. ]
See also
* List of islands of Tasmania
References
Furneaux Group
Important Bird Areas of Tasmania
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