The Snowy River National Park is a
national park
A national park is a natural park in use for conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individua ...
located in the
alpine and
East Gippsland regions of
Victoria,
Australia. The national park is situated approximately northeast of
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...
and southwest of
Canberra, south of the
Black-Allan Line that marks part of the border between Victoria and
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
.
On 7 November 2008, the park was added to the
Australian National Heritage List as one of eleven areas constituting the
Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves.
History
Some aboriginal relics were discovered on the Snowy River which indicated that the Kruatungulung group of the Kurnai Aborigines used to hunt here. It was in the 1840s that cattlemen and miners visited the region and started using the higher land for summer grazing and introduced silver mining. The proposal for the national park was submitted in 1935, but the establishment took place in 1979.
Location and features
Declared on , much of the park is classified as wilderness area, where vehicles are unable to visit.
[ Within the national park is the Little River Gorge, Victoria's deepest gorge, with the Little River descending off the Wulgulmerang plateau over to the Snowy River at an elevation of ]above sea level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as '' orthometric heights''.
The ...
.
The park provides one of the last natural habitats at the Little River Gorge for the endangered brush-tailed rock wallaby
The brush-tailed rock-wallaby or small-eared rock-wallaby (''Petrogale penicillata'') is a kind of wallaby, one of several rock-wallabies in the genus '' Petrogale''. It inhabits rock piles and cliff lines along the Great Dividing Range from a ...
. Numbers for this species are estimated as extremely small, with the rugged terrain making it difficult to accurately monitor the species population. Over 250 native species have been recorded in the park, 29 of which are considered rare or threatened in Victoria, including the long-footed potoroo, spotted quoll (tiger quoll), giant burrowing frog and ''Cyclodomorphus michaeli''.Coopracambra National Park
The Coopracambra National Park is a national park located in the Gippsland region of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. The national park is situated approximately east of Melbourne and south of Canberra, near the town of .
Features
T ...
, and the nearby Croajingolong National Park and Cape Conran Coastal Park
Cape Conran Coastal Park is a coastal reserve located near Marlo in East Gippsland in Victoria, Australia. The 11,700 hectare area was declared a coastal park under the ''National Parks Act 1975'' (Vic) in 1997. It is 420 km east of Melb ...
.[
]
See also
* Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves
* Protected areas of Victoria (Australia)
* Snowy Mountains Scheme
References
External links
*
{{authority control
National parks of Victoria (Australia)
East Gippsland
Protected areas established in 1979
Australian National Heritage List
1979 establishments in Australia
Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves
Snowy River
Southeast Australia temperate forests