Furneaux Islands
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Furneaux Group is a group of approximately 100
island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...
s located at the eastern end of Bass Strait, between
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...
and
Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...
, Australia. The islands were named after British navigator
Tobias Furneaux Captain Tobias Furneaux (21 August 173518 September 1781) was an English navigator and Royal Navy officer, who accompanied James Cook on his second voyage of exploration. He was one of the first men to circumnavigate the world in both directions ...
, who sighted the eastern side of these islands after leaving Adventure Bay in 1773 on his way to New Zealand to rejoin
Captain James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and ...
. Navigator Matthew Flinders was the first European to explore the Furneaux Islands group, in the in 1798, and later that year in the . The largest islands in the group are
Flinders Island Flinders Island, the largest island in the Furneaux Group, is a island in the Bass Strait, northeast of the island of Tasmania. Flinders Island was the place where the last remnants of aboriginal Tasmanian population were exiled by the colo ...
,
Cape Barren Island Cape Barren Island, officially truwana / Cape Barren Island, is a island in the Bass Strait, off the north east coast of Tasmania, Australia. It is the second largest island of the Furneaux Group; Flinders Island lies to the north, with th ...
, and Clarke Island. The group contains five settlements: Killiecrankie, Emita, Lady Barron, Cape Barren Island, and
Whitemark Whitemark is a rural residential locality on Flinders Island in the local government area (LGA) of Flinders in the North-east LGA region of Tasmania. The 2016 census recorded a population of 301 for the state suburb of Whitemark. It is the mai ...
on Flinders Island, which serves as the administrative centre of the
Flinders Council Flinders Council is a local government body in Tasmania, encompassing the Furneaux Group and nearby islands of Bass Strait, in the north-east of the state. Flinders is classified as a rural local government area and has a population of 987, w ...
. There are also some small farming properties on the remote islands. After seals were discovered there in 1798, the Furneaux Group of islands became the most intensively exploited sealing ground in Bass Strait. A total of 29 islands in the Furneaux Group have been found to have some tangible link with sealing in the 19th century. The Aboriginal matriarch, Dolly Dalrymple, was born on the Furneaux Islands. Her mother was one of two Aboriginal women who had been kidnapped from northern Tasmania by the sealer George Briggs. King Island, at the western end of Bass Strait, is not a part of the group.


Administration

The Furneaux Group forms the
Flinders Council Flinders Council is a local government body in Tasmania, encompassing the Furneaux Group and nearby islands of Bass Strait, in the north-east of the state. Flinders is classified as a rural local government area and has a population of 987, w ...
together with the groups of islands to the northwest: the
Kent Group The Kent Group are a grouping of six granite islands located in Bass Strait, north-west of the Furneaux Group in Tasmania, Australia. Collectively, the group is comprised within the Kent Group National Park. The islands were named Kent's Gro ...
, Hogan Island Group,
Curtis Group Curtis Island is a granite island, with an area of 150  ha, in south-eastern Australia. It is part of Tasmania’s Curtis Group, lying in northern Bass Strait between the Furneaux Group and Wilsons Promontory in Victoria. It is a nature ...
, and the Tasmanian part of the Wilsons Promontory Islands.


Islands in the Group


Geology

The islands contain granite from the Devonian period, as well as unconsolidated limestone and sand from Cenozoic periods. During the last ice age, a land bridge joined Tasmania to the Australian mainland through this group of islands.


See also

*
Furneaux bioregion Furneaux is an interim Australian bioregion that includes the Furneaux Group of more than one hundred islands off the northeast coast of Tasmania, as well as the northeast corner of Tasmania and Wilson's Promontory on the Australian mainland. ...
* '' Engaeus martigener'' *
List of islands of Tasmania Tasmania is the smallest and southernmost state of Australia. The Tasmanian mainland itself is an island, with an area of - 94.1% of the total land area of the state. The other islands have a combined area of , for a cumulative total of 99.75% o ...


References


External links


Birds of the Furneaux Islands


{{Authority control Seal hunting