Shark Bay Marine National Park

Shark Bay Marine National Park
Steep Point in Shark Bay
Coordinates: 25 ° 55 ′ 0 ″  S , 113 ° 32 ′ 0 ″  E
Location:	Western Australia , Australia
Specialty:	world's largest protected underwater park
Next city:	Denham
Surface:	4,000 km²
Founding:	1990
Shark Bay with marine park, Hamelin Pool below right and Henri Freycinet Harbor below , a bay

The Shark Bay Marine National Park ( English Shark Bay Marine Park , Shark Bay Marine Park ) is located on Shark Bay , which has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO . The marine park is located in Western Australia about 800 km north of Perth . In the bay is the small town of Denham on one of the peninsulas; the next larger town is Carnarvon, 331 km away . The Shark Bay Marine National Park, a unique underwater world, is the world's largest protected underwater area with around 4000 km² and the largest seagrass area known worldwide with 12 species of seagrass . About a third of the entire Shark Bay, that is about 7,000 km², is said to be overgrown with sea grasses, which provide shelter and food for many animals.

Surname

The name Shark Bay was given by the explorer William Dampier , who toured this area in 1699. This name suggests that sharks swim there on a large scale. They do occur, but they are rare, because dolphins live in the 9 to 10 meter deep bay . Wild dolphins come all the way to Monkey Mia beach , which is partially located in the reserve. They are hand-tame and can be fed by tourists in shallow water.

location

The coastline of the entire bay is more than 1500 kilometers. The marine park is roughly bounded in the north by the Cape Inscription and the Gudrun wreck . To the south, the park extends to the banks of Tamala Homestead . A separate protected area that is located within the Shark Bay Marine Nations Park in the south and is particularly protected is the Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve in the south . The stromatolites , which are extremely rare today and have been around for around 3½ billion years, live in this area . It is one of the oldest forms of life on earth that only occurs in a few places on earth. They survived in Shark Bay because the salinity here is about twice as high as in the open ocean. Because of this extreme salt content, they had no natural enemies and were able to build up their biofilm .

Flora and fauna

Quarry for bricks from shells at Shell Beach

Shark Bay Marine National Park is home to sea ​​turtles , dolphins , rays , whales and the dugong , a species of manatee . This population of the dugongs is estimated at 16,000 specimens, making it one of the largest concentrations of this rare animal species in the world. Motorized boats are prohibited in certain areas to protect the dugongs, and fishing is prohibited in the Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve .

In the bay there are numerous species of fish such as the red snapper , and some species from the groups of crustaceans and cnidarians .

The water in the bay is very salty ( hyperhalin ), which is why only certain types of plants can thrive in it, such as the twelve types of seaweed . Cockles ( Fragum erugatum ) grew in this area - at Shell Beach 45 km southeast of Denham to such an extent that they formed a rock layer along L'Haridon Bight about 110 km in length. After the protected area was designated, the stone was no longer allowed to be mined for the purpose of masonry construction.

literature

• Thomson, Carolyn (1997) Discovering Shark Bay Marine Park and Monkey Mia Como, WA Department of Conservation and Land Management. ISBN 0-7309-6854-5

Web links

• Information on sharkbay.org
• Park website

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Peninsulas and islands of Shark Bay - Why World Heritage. (PDF; 374 kB) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; accessed on January 19, 2016 (English, information brochure on the world cultural heritage). 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.  
2. ↑ Janine Günther, Jens Mohr (2009): Westaustralien und das Top End , p. 275. Verlag 360 Grad, Gamehl 2005, ISBN 978-3-9809763-0-5
3. ↑ Proof of the age of the stromatolites , accessed on January 18, 2010
4. ↑ Geological and Paleontological Sites of Brazil, 041: LAGOA SALGADA (RIO DE JANEIRO) RECENT STROMATOLITES. In: SIGEP - Comissão Brasileira de Sítios Geológicos e Paleobiológicos. September 28, 1999, accessed January 19, 2016 . 
5. ^ Species Identification Guide Gascoyne Coast Region. (PDF) November 2011, archived from the original on March 24, 2012 ; accessed on January 18, 2010 (English).