Vansittart Island (Tasmania)

aerial view of Vansittart Island

Vansittart Island, also known as Gun Carriage Island, is a granite island, with an area of 800 ha, is part of Tasmania’s Vansittart Island Group, lying in eastern Bass Strait between Flinders and Cape Barren Islands in the Furneaux Group.

It is partly private property and partly leasehold land and is currently used for grazing Wiltshire Horn sheep. The island is part of the Franklin Sound Islands Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because it holds over 1% of the world populations of six bird species.[1]

History

Former Bass Strait sealers were living on the island by the 1820s.[2] In 1831 George Robinson came to evict the sealers and their families as he wanted to establish an Aboriginal settlement on the island. When the Aboriginal establishment proved unsuccessful the sealers and their families returned to the island. Their community had grown to 28 people by the time Bishop Nixon came to visit in 1854.[3]

Flora and fauna

Most of the original vegetation of the island has been cleared by the use of fire and by bulldozers with chains, destroying many stands of Oyster Bay pine.

Recorded breeding seabird and wader species are little penguin, Pacific gull, sooty oystercatcher and pied oystercatcher. Black swans have nested on the island, which is also a refuge for Cape Barren geese. Reptiles present include tiger snakeCopperhead snake and White lipped grass snake, southern grass skink, metallic skink and Bougainville's skink. extinct, echidnas are present, though the Tasmanian pademelon is extinct there.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "BirdLife Data Zone Franklin Sound Islands". BirdLife International. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  2. ↑ Kostoglou, Parry (1996). Sealing in Tasmania (First ed.). Hobart: Parks and Wildlife Service. p. 106-7.
  3. ↑ Kostoglou, p.108.
  4. ↑ Brothers, Nigel; Pemberton, David; Pryor, Helen; & Halley, Vanessa. (2001). Tasmania’s Offshore Islands: seabirds and other natural features. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery: Hobart. ISBN 0-7246-4816-X

Coordinates: 40°16′S 148°18′E / 40.267°S 148.300°E / -40.267; 148.300

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