The Shire of Shark Bay is a local government area of Western Australia in the

Gascoyne The Gascoyne region is one of the nine administrative regions of Western Australia. It is located in the northwest of Western Australia, and consists of the local government areas of Carnarvon, Exmouth, Shark Bay and Upper Gascoyne. The Gasc ...

region. It has an area of 25,423 km² and a population of about 950. It is made up of two peninsulas, located at the westernmost point of Australia. There is one town in the Shire of Shark Bay, Denham, which is the administrative centre for the Shire. There are also a number of small communities; they are Useless Loop (a now-closed mining site),

Monkey Mia Monkey Mia is a popular tourist destination located about 900 km north of Perth, Western Australia. The reserve is 25 km northeast of the town of Denham in the Shark Bay Marine Park and World Heritage Site. The main attraction are t ...

(a popular resort where

dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...

s come in), Nanga and

Hamelin Pool The Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve is a protected marine nature reserve located in the UNESCO World Heritagelisted Shark Bay in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The nature reserve boasts the most diverse and abundant examples ...

. The Overlander and The Billabong are roadhouses.

History

The Shark Bay Road District was gazetted on 13 May 1904. In 1951 the then current officials were dismissed. On 1 July 1961, it became a shire under the ''Local Government Act 1960'', which reformed all remaining road districts into shires.

Wards

The Shire is divided into three wards: * Denham Ward (five councillors) * Pastoral Ward (one councillor) * Useless Loop Ward (one councillor)

Towns and localities

The towns and localities of the Shire of Shark Bay with population and size figures based on the most recent

Australian census The Census in Australia, officially the Census of Population and Housing, is the national census in Australia that occurs every five years. The census collects key demographic, social and economic data from all people in Australia on census nig ...

Economy

Major employers include the salt works at Useless Loop along with the fishing industry and the various retail outlets meeting the needs of the tourist industry. There are some 30 personnel employed by the Department of Environment and Conservation and twenty by the Shire. There is a primary school and a Distance Education structured secondary school. Numbers of school aged children fluctuate around the 100 mark. The Police Station is manned by 3 officers. Local industries include

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...

, pearl marine culturing, mining of

shell grit Shell grit is coarsely ground or broken seashells. It is used, among other things, by birds as a source of calcium for egg shell production, and to aid digestion Digestion is the breakdown of large insoluble food molecules into small water-solu ...

and various pastoral activities.

Tourism

The creation of the Shark Bay World Heritage Site has created significant impact on the community within the shire area.

Community

The Shire council produced a community newsletter title the ''Inscription Post'' from 1989 until January 2011 when it was produced by the Shark Bay Community Resource Centre.

Climate

The Shire of Shark Bay has a mild arid tropical

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologi ...

, with mean daily maximum temperatures ranging from 22 °C (72 °F) in July to 32 °C (90 °F) in February. Rainfall is low and variable, with most rain falling in the winter months and a certain amount due to cyclone activity. The average annual rainfall is 228 mm.

Population

Heritage-listed places

As of 2021, 53 places are heritage-listed in the Shire of Shark Bay, of which three are on the

State Register of Heritage Places The State Register of Heritage Places is the heritage register of historic sites in Western Australia deemed significant at the state level by the Heritage Council of Western Australia. History In the 1970s, following its establishment of the ...

, all on

Dirk Hartog Island A dirk is a long bladed thrusting dagger.Chisholm, Hugh (ed.), ''Dagger'', The Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. VII, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press (1910), p. 729 Historically, it gained its name from the Highland Dirk (Scot ...

References

External links

* {{Coord, -25.927, 113.534, type:adm2nd_region:AU-WA, format=dms, display=title Shark Bay