Ward Islands is an island group in the

Australian state The states and territories are federated administrative divisions in Australia, ruled by regional governments that constitute the second level of governance between the federal government and local governments. States are self-governing ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

located in the

Investigator Group The Investigator Group is an archipelago in South Australia that consists of Flinders Island and five island groups located off the western coast of the Eyre Peninsula. It is named after by her commander, Matthew Flinders when he explore ...

about west by south of

Cape Finniss Cape Finniss (also spelt Cape Finnis) is a headland located at the southern extremity of Anxious Bay on the west coast of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia about Points of the compass#32 cardinal points, Northwest by west of the town of Elliston ...

on the west coast of

Eyre Peninsula The Eyre Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in South Australia. It is bounded by the Spencer Gulf on the east, the Great Australian Bight on the west, and the Gawler Ranges to the north. Originally called Eyre’s Peninsula, it was named af ...

. The group was discovered and named by Matthew Flinders on 13 February 1802. The island group has enjoyed protected area status since the 1960s and since 2011, it been part of the Investigator Group Wilderness Protection Area.

Description

Ward Islands is an island group located about west by south of Cape Finniss on the west coast of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, about west by south of the town of Elliston and about west north-west of the south west point of

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 ...

.DMH, 1985, chart 38 The group consist of two islands: Ward Island (also known as the NE islet) and South Ward Island (also known as the SE Islet). Ward Island covers an area of . It rises above sea level with a coastline consisting of cliffs and scree slopes, all described as being ‘steep’, to a summit at which has a relatively flat profile and ‘which carries a crust of soil and a few diminutive sand dunes’. South Ward Island is described as ‘a hump of rock and soil’ which reaches a height of above sea level and which is located about to the south-east of Ward Island. Access to Ward Island (and presumably to South Ward Island) is reported as being ‘complicated by the swell and the rocky coast’ to the extent that in one instance, ‘no safe boat landing sites could be found’. As a result, a survey carried out in 1980 used a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

to land survey personnel on Ward Island.Robinson et al, 1996, page 382

Formation, geology and oceanography

The Ward Islands were formed about 9450 years ago following the rise of sea levels at the start of the

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

. Geologically, Ward Island is the remnant of a small hill with a

volcanic plug A volcanic plug, also called a volcanic neck or lava neck, is a volcanic object created when magma hardens within a vent on an active volcano. When present, a plug can cause an extreme build-up of high gas pressure if rising volatile-charged ma ...

core which had solidified to

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

more than 1500 Ma ago and whose summit was buried under sand that consolidated to

calcarenite Calcarenite is a type of limestone that is composed predominantly, more than 50 percent, of detrital (transported) sand-size (0.0625 to 2 mm in diameter), carbonate grains. The grains consist of sand-size grains of either corals, shells, ooi ...

, and that has been extensively eroded by wave action since the commencement of sea level rise. The Ward Islands are part of a submerged reef system which includes a number of ‘sunken rocks, and three detached reefs, on which the sea generally breaks’ and which extends from Ward Island to the west of for about and to the south for about . A depth of is reached within of the west of Ward Island.

Flora and fauna

Flora

Terrestrial flora on the island group was found in 1980 to be represented by 12 species present as a ‘low, salt and wind-pruned

heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler a ...

’ and dominated by the following three species.

Marsh saltbush ''Atriplex paludosa'', commonly known as marsh saltbush, is a species of saltbush endemic to Australia. Description It grows as an erect shrub up to a metre high. Leaves are oval in shape, one to four centimetres long, and 2 to 15 millimetres wi ...

is common on Ward Island in ‘deepest patches of the sandy loam soil’ followed by Nitre bush which favours ‘limey calcareous soils’ and pointed twinleaf which favours ‘the orange, decomposed sandstone soils’. South Ward Island is vegetated with marsh saltbush as are a number of large rocks which are permanently exposed above

low water Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables ca ...

Fauna

Vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () (chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with c ...

animals observed on the island group include Australian sea lions and

New Zealand fur seal ''Arctocephalus forsteri'' (common names include the Australasian fur seal, South Australian fur seal, New Zealand fur seal, Antipodean fur seal, or long-nosed fur seal) is a species of fur seal found mainly around southern Australia and New Z ...

s and the following

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

species: short tailed shearwater, white faced storm petrel,

osprey The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...

white-bellied sea-eagle The white-bellied sea eagle (''Haliaeetus leucogaster''), also known as the white-breasted sea eagle, is a large diurnal bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. Originally described by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1788, it is closely related t ...

, Richard’s pipit,

sooty oystercatcher The sooty oystercatcher (''Haematopus fuliginosus'') is a species of oystercatcher. It is a wading bird endemic to Australia and commonly found on its coastline. It prefers rocky coastlines, but will occasionally live in estuaries. All of its fea ...

silver gull The silver gull (''Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae'') is the most common gull of Australia. It has been found throughout the continent, but particularly at or near coastal areas. It is smaller than the Pacific gull (''Larus pacificus''), which ...

Pacific gull The Pacific gull (''Larus pacificus'') is a very large gull, native to the coasts of Australia. It is moderately common between Carnarvon in the west, and Sydney in the east, although it has become scarce in some parts of the south-east, as a re ...

and

rock parrot The rock parrot (''Neophema petrophila'') is a species of grass parrot native to Australia. Described by John Gould in 1841, it is a small parrot long and weighing with predominantly olive-brown upperparts and more yellowish underparts. Its h ...

.Robinson et al, 1996, page 195

History

European discovery and use

Flinders discovered the island group on Saturday, 13 February 1802, and reportedly named it after his mother’s maiden name. On the same day, Flinders also nominated it as one of the constituent parts of the Investigator Group.Robinson et al, 1996, page 194

Protected areas status

The Ward Islands first received protected area status as part of a fauna reserve declared under the ''Fauna Conservation Act 1964'' either on 1 September 1966 or 16 March 1967. The island group and other adjoining islands became part of the Investigator Group Conservation Park proclaimed under the ''

National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 Protected areas of South Australia consists of protected areas located within South Australia and its immediate onshore waters and which are managed by South Australian Government agencies. As of March 2018, South Australia contains 359 sepa ...

'' in 1972. On 25 August 2011, it was one of the island groups excised from the Investigator Group Conservation Park and added to the Investigator Group Wilderness Protection Area. Since 2012, the waters adjoining the Ward Islands have been part of a habitat protection zone in the

Investigator Marine Park __NOTOC__ Investigator Marine Park is a marine protected area in the Australian state of South Australia located in the state's coastal waters in its west adjoining the west coast of Eyre Peninsula and islands in the Investigator Group respective ...

.DEWNR, 2012, page 26 of 26DEH, 2006, pages 5-6WAC, 2013, pages 16-17

Citations and references

Citations

References

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ward Islands (South Australia) Islands of South Australia Uninhabited islands of Australia Great Australian Bight