Wedge Island is an island in the

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

n state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, 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 o ...

located within the island group known as the Gambier Islands near the entrance to

Spencer Gulf The Spencer Gulf is the westernmost and larger of two large inlets (the other being Gulf St Vincent) on the southern coast of Australia, in the state of South Australia, facing the Great Australian Bight. It spans from the Cape Catastrophe a ...

. It is the largest of the Gambier Islands, covers an area of about and is partly privately owned.

Description

The island is a privately owned island. There is a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses m ...

at the south-eastern end, and highest point, of the island. There is an airstrip on the island as well as a jetty. The island has one permanent resident as of 2021. There is a farmhouse for the use of the owners of the island. There are two private holiday houses and two Holiday Rentals. It is a base for local and offshore

recreational fishing Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit; or subsistence fishing, which is fishing fo ...

. It is also a

dive site Recreational dive sites are specific places that recreational scuba divers go to enjoy the underwater environment or for training purposes. They include technical diving sites beyond the range generally accepted for recreational diving. In this c ...

History

Wedge Island was named in 1802 by

Matthew Flinders Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland. He is also credited as being the first person to ut ...

. It was originally settled in the mid-19th century as a farm for breeding horses for the

British Indian Army The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which cou ...

, with various agricultural activities such sheep and cattle grazing and wheat cropping continuing for the next 130 years. In 1929, Andrew Golley left the island after living there for forty years. He had originally moved there with his parents. His interest in the island was transferred to H. R. Littley who moved there with his wife, son, daughter and son-in-law. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Wedge Island was used as a

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...

station by the

Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

(RAAF). A bunker was constructed near the lighthouse and was occupied by about 40 RAAF personnel for several years.

Flora and fauna

Fauna

An account of the wildlife on Wedge Island from 1928 reads:

"The penguins were busy with their half-grown youngsters, and after dark the night echoed to their weird and ghostlike cries. Quail were plentiful among the grass paddocks and flew up almost from beneath our feet, while high above our heads a pair of wedge-tailed eagles wheeled and circled then planed slowly down to alight upon a lone pinnacle of the rocky western coast."

Further detail appears in a 1929 account:

"Seabirds abound. Penguins and hair seals (Australian sealions) are on Wedge Island also. About September, mutton birds arrive in huge flocks. They breed extensively on Gambier Island, which is close to Wedge."

Little penguins are known to have lived on the island from at least 1924, and were known to the Gambier Islands since at least 1869. A 1986 account of North Island described a population of "thousands" of muttonbirds and penguins there. Little penguin breeding sites were noted in a 1996 survey of South Australia's offshore islands. A 1928 account of the Haycocks (off Wedge Island) describes a party from the Avocet filming the "large number" of seals there. In 2004 there were estimated to be fewer than 100 little penguins in the colony.

Introduced species

The island has had many species introduced to it since European colonisation. It has been used to breed horses for re-mounting of the British armed forces in India. It has also been ravaged by goats. Turkeys were plentiful there in the 1920s. Southern hairy-nosed Wombats were introduced in 1971 to boost tourism appeal and there are now about 300 living on the island. The endangered Brush-tailed Bettong has been introduced to the island for the purpose of conserving the species.

Wedge Island Important Bird Area

Wedge island has been identified as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Inte ...

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

, an

international non-governmental organization An international non-governmental organization (INGO) is an organization which is independent of government involvement and extends the concept of a non-governmental organization (NGO) to an international scope. NGOs are independent of government ...

, because it supports over 1% of the world population, with up to about 16,000 breeding pairs, of

white-faced storm-petrel The white-faced storm petrel (''Pelagodroma marina''), also known as white-faced petrel is a small seabird of the austral storm petrel family Oceanitidae. It is the only member of the monotypic genus ''Pelagodroma''. Description The white-faced ...

References

{{Islands of South Australia , state=collapsed Islands of South Australia Spencer Gulf Penguin colonies