Mermaid Reef Marine National Nature Reserve
The Mermaid Reef Marine National Nature Reserve protects the waters and the Mermaid Reefs , a coral atoll , which lies about 290 km northwest of Broome in Western Australia at the end of the continental shelf of Australia . This atoll rises from a depth of 500 m and rises only a few meters above sea level.
The oval Mermaid Reef is the northeasternmost of the three atolls of the Rowley Shoal with Clerke Reef and Imperieuse Reef . The Mermaid Reef is listed on the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List .
history
The waters of the Rowley Shoals , including the Mermaid Reef , are believed to have been visited by Indonesian fishermen by the 18th century. In the later years fishermen came from Roti Island south of Timor who called this reef Pulau Manjariti . They hunted for sea cucumbers , sea turtles , trochus snails and shark fins.
Today the atoll is named after a British 250-ton whaling ship, the Mermaid , which sank there in the early 1900s.
In November 1974, Australia and Indonesia signed a Memorandum of Understanding that allows traditional Indonesian fishermen access to this area, but has excluded the protected areas of the Rowley Shoals since 1975.
Marine protected areas
Clerke and Imperieuse Reef form the Rowley Shoals Marine Park , administered by the Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) of Western Australia. The Mermaid Reef Marine National Nature Reserve is maintained by the Australian Nature Conservation Agency (ANCA) on cooperation with CALM.
Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, charter boats have brought several hundred diving tourists from Broome to the marine reserve every year .
Atoll description
The oval Mermaid Reef is 14.5 km long and reaches its greatest width at 7.6 km. The entrance to the lagoon is 60 m wide, a maximum of 20 m deep and the tidal boy is 4.5 m. The tide washes over all landmarks, at low tide a large sandbank emerges at the northern end and several banks in the west emerge from the water. These sandbars are an important resting place for 19 species of birds.
Marine fauna
In the marine reserve, 216 species of hard corals , 12 soft corals and 390 species of fish were counted. These include rare dolphins , tuna , marlins and sharks such as the gray reef shark, white tip reef shark and silver tip shark .
Mussels , giant clams , octopus , squids , snails , echinoderms (such as sea cucumbers , starfish and sea urchins ) and crustaceans (including crabs , lobsters and shrimp ) are found there.
Little is known about the fauna of the deep sea there, but a study showed that there are glass sponges and spider crabs , starfish, gorgonians and sea feathers , as well as black corals , sea lilies and feather stars .
Whitetip shark
Giant clam
Starfish
Gorgonian
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c environment.gov.au ( Memento of the original from September 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Mermaid Reef National Nature Reserve, in English, accessed August 15
Coordinates: 17 ° 6 ′ 0 ″ S , 119 ° 37 ′ 0 ″ E