Eighty Mile Beach, also spelled Eighty-mile Beach or 80-mile Beach, lies along the north-west coast of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

about half-way between the towns of Broome and

Port Hedland A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ha ...

. It is a beach some in length, forming the coastline where the Great Sandy Desert approaches the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

. It is one of the most important sites for migratory shorebirds, or waders, in Australia, and is recognised as a

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The p ...

of international importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.

History

Traditional ownership and usage

80 mile beach shells 29-4-2004 - panoramio

The southern section of Eighty Mile Beach is part of the traditional territory of the Nyangumarta people, who maintain a strong connection to the area with many songs, stories and ceremonies associated with sites along and in the vicinity of the beach. In June 2009 the Federal Court of Australia determined that the Nyangumarta People were the valid

native title Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...

holders of that section of the beach. The judgement of the Court was delivered on country at Nyiyamarri Pukurl, a site adjacent to the Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park. Traditional ownership of the northern part of Eighty Mile Beach, within the vicinity of the Anna Plains pastoral lease, is shared between the Nyangumarta People and the

Karajarri The Karajarri are an Aboriginal Australian people, who once lived south-west of the Kimberleys in the northern Pilbara region, predominantly between the coastal area and the Great Sandy Desert. They now mostly reside at Bidyadanga, south of B ...

(or Garadjari) People. The two groups filed overlapping native title determination applications over the area, which were determined together on 25 May 2012. The judgement of the Court was delivered on country at Talgarno, a former military site within the Anna Plains pastoral lease. In the Karajarri language, Eighty Mile Beach is called , meaning "a creaking noise", with reference to the sound of walking through dry sand. Many

Aboriginal people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

with connections to the area now live at the Bidyadanga Community (formerly the La Grange Mission) and nearby at Frazier Downs. Several soaks, known as , lie behind the beach and were traditionally important as sources of fresh water. Many of the soaks became Water Reserves on the Kimberley-De Grey

Stock Route A stock route, also known as travelling stock route (TSR), is an authorised thoroughfare for the walking of domestic livestock such as sheep or cattle from one location to another in Australia. The stock routes across the country are colloquially ...

, which was used until the 1960s for long distance

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

droving Droving is the practice of walking livestock over long distances. It is a type of herding. Droving stock to market—usually on foot and often with the aid of dogs—has a very long history in the Old World. An owner might entrust an agent to de ...

Military use

The Talgarno military base, east of Anna Plains homestead, was important in the post-

Second World War 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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

period for the monitoring and recovery of British Blue Streak rockets, test-fired from Woomera, South Australia. A gravel

airstrip An aerodrome ( Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for pub ...

, artesian bores and concrete blockhouses remain. In 1999 the Department of Defence test-fired a missile from a site on Anna Plains, in connection with the development of the Jindalee over-the-horizon radar project.

Shorebird research

Because of its importance for shorebirds, Eighty Mile Beach is classified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) and is one of the principal shorebird study sites in north-western Australia. It regularly supports over 400,000 shorebirds, including over 1% of the global populations of

bar-tailed godwit The bar-tailed godwit (''Limosa lapponica'') is a large and strongly migratory wader in the family Scolopacidae, which feeds on bristle-worms and shellfish on coastal mudflats and estuaries. It has distinctive red breeding plumage, long legs, ...

s, eastern curlews,

great knot __NOTOC__ The great knot (''Calidris tenuirostris'') is a small wader. It is the largest of the calidrid species. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside bird ...

red knot The red knot or just knot (''Calidris canutus'') is a medium-sized shorebird which breeds in tundra and the Arctic Cordillera in the far north of Canada, Europe, and Russia. It is a large member of the '' Calidris'' sandpipers, second only to the ...

red-necked stint The red-necked stint (''Calidris ruficollis'') is a small migratory wader. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside birds. The specific ''ruficollis'' is from ...

s, grey-tailed tattlers,

Terek sandpiper The Terek sandpiper (''Xenus cinereus'') is a small migratory Palearctic wader species and is the only member of the genus ''Xenus''. It is named after the Terek River which flows into the west of the Caspian Sea, as it was first observed arou ...

pied oystercatcher The pied oystercatcher (''Haematopus longirostris'') is a species of oystercatcher. It is a wading bird native to Australia and commonly found on its coastline. The similar South Island pied oystercatcher (''H. finschi'') occurs in New Zealand. ...

greater sand plover The greater sand plover (''Charadrius leschenaultii'') is a small wader in the plover family of birds. The spelling is commonly given as "greater sandplover" or "greater sand-plover", but the official British Ornithologists' Union spelling is "Gre ...

s, Oriental plovers,

red-capped plover The red-capped plover (''Charadrius ruficapillus''), also known as the red-capped dotterel, is a small species of plover. It breeds in Australia. This species is closely related to (and sometimes considered conspecific with) the Kentish plover, ...

s and Oriental pratincoles, with irregular high counts of other species. Since 1981 almost yearly expeditions by the Australasian Wader Studies Group have been banding and counting shorebirds there as part of a long-term program of monitoring the populations using the East Asian – Australasian Flyway. Since 1992 most birds caught have also been leg-flagged to discover their precise migration routes and staging sites.Minton (2006).

Description

Geography

Eighty Mile Beach lies in the Shire of Broome in the

Kimberley region of Western Australia The Kimberley is the northernmost of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy and Tanami deserts in the region of the Pilbara, an ...

, in the Dampierland

bioregion A bioregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a biogeographic realm, but larger than an ecoregion or an ecosystem, in the World Wide Fund for Nature classification scheme. There is also an attempt to use the ...

. It extends south-west from Cape Missiessy in a shallow curve to Cape Keraudren , with its midpoint at . The beach is about 100 m wide and has a gentle gradient. It consists of sand with a high proportion of shelly material, and experiences a very large tidal range with an amplitude of up to 9 m. The adjoining tidal mudflats vary from 1 to 5 km in width. On the landward side it is bordered by dunes, a narrow

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

and, further inland, by a strip of pindan

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...

or shrubland. Most of the land along the coast is covered by four large pastoral leases: Anna Plains,

Mandora File:Mandora MET DP168838.jpg, 6~9 courses lute (Calchedon, Calichon) (1726)Georg Kinsky: Musikhistorisches Museum von Wilhelm Heyer in Cöln, Bd. 2, Köln 1912, S. 98. File:Gallichon, Muzeum Instrumentów Muzycznych w Pradze.jpg, Gallichon The ...

Wallal Wallal is the location of a bore in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The bore is located from the Great Northern Highway between Port Hedland and Broome and has an elevation of . The nearest town is Marble Bar, south of the bor ...

and Pardoo, which are operated principally as

cattle station In Australia and New Zealand, a cattle station is a large farm ( station is equivalent to the American ranch), the main activity of which is the rearing of cattle. The owner of a cattle station is called a '' grazier''. The largest cattle stat ...

Climate

The climate is

semi-arid A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi- ...

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal osci ...

al with a hot wet summer and a warm dry winter. Median and mean annual rainfall are 327 mm and 341 mm respectively, with annual evaporation about 3500 mm. There is much variability in rainfall, with significant variation between years as well as the period when the bulk of the rain falls; much is contributed by

tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depen ...

s, especially from January to March.

Ramsar site

Some of the beach and adjoining land, as well as the Mandora Marsh, was designated Ramsar Site 480 on 7 June 1990.Information Sheet on Ramsar Wetlands.Annotated Ramsar List.

Eighty Mile Beach

Flora

Along the beach, the primary dunes are stabilised by green birdflower and beach spinifex. Secondary parallel, calcareous dune ridges and swales commonly feature scattered dune wattle. Significant grasses include '' Whiteochloa airoides'' and the local endemic '' Triodia epactia'', a resinous hummock-forming species. Inland grasslands have been strongly modified by intensive cattle grazing and are dominated by introduced

buffel grass ''Cenchrus ciliaris'' (buffel-grass or African foxtail grass; syn. ''Pennisetum ciliare'' (L.) Link) is a species of grass native to most of Africa, southern Asia (east to India), southern Iran, and the extreme south of Europe (Sicily). Other na ...

and birdwood grass.

Fauna

The principal conservation value of Eighty Mile Beach lies in the presence of very large numbers of shorebirds, for which it is one of the most important non-breeding and migratory stop-over areas in the East Asian – Australasian Flyway, regularly supporting more than 400,000 birds and especially important as a landfall for birds migrating southwards from their high latitude breeding grounds in northern Asia and

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

to spend the austral summer in Australia. It is one of the most important sites in the world for the migration of

and it supports at least 1% of the flyway population (or 1% of the national population for non-migratory species) of 17 waders and the

Caspian tern The Caspian tern (''Hydroprogne caspia'') is a species of tern, with a subcosmopolitan but scattered distribution. Despite its extensive range, it is monotypic of its genus, and has no accepted subspecies. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ' ...

. The most abundant shorebird species at the beach are the great knot (up to 169,000 counted),

(110,000), and

(80,000). Other notable species include

curlew sandpiper The curlew sandpiper (''Calidris ferruginea'') is a small wader that breeds on the tundra of Arctic Siberia. It is strongly migratory, wintering mainly in Africa, but also in south and southeast Asia and in Australia and New Zealand. It is a v ...

(60,000),

(60,000), large sand plover (64,000) and Oriental plover (57,000) on the beach,

sharp-tailed sandpiper The sharp-tailed sandpiper (''Calidris acuminata'') (but see below) is a small wader. Taxonomy A review of data has indicated that this bird should perhaps better be placed into the genus ''Philomachus'' – as ''P. acuminatus'' – which now ...

(25,000) at both the beach and floodplain swamps, and little curlew (12,000) on the floodplain. Flatback turtles nest along Eighty-mile Beach at scattered locations between October and April. Coastal plains in the southern part of Anna Plains Station are a stronghold for

Australian bustard The Australian bustard (''Ardeotis australis'') is a large ground dwelling bird which is common in grassland, woodland and open agricultural country across northern Australia and southern New Guinea. It stands at about high, and its wingspan is ...

s and support high densities of red kangaroos. The western part of Wallal Downs has a dense population of euros.

Mandora Marsh

Mandora Marsh, also known as the Mandora Salt Marsh, is a diverse wetland complex based on a palaeo-river system. It lies on Mandora Station, with the western end some 30 km from Eighty Mile Beach, beginning on the inland side of the

Great Northern Highway Great Northern Highway is an Australian highway that links Western Australia's capital city Perth with its northernmost port, Wyndham. With a length of almost , it is the longest highway in Australia, with the majority included as part of the ...

, at the western edge of the Great Sandy Desert, in which bioregion it lies. Although it is included in the Eighty Mile Beach Ramsar Site, its environmental values are somewhat different.

Tourism and access

Eighty Mile Beach is subject to a relatively low but increasing amount of

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...

. A

caravan park Caravan or caravans may refer to: Transport and travel *Caravan (travellers), a group of travellers journeying together **Caravanserai, a place where a caravan could stop *Camel train, a convoy using camels as pack animals *Convoy, a group of veh ...

has been established on Wallal Downs at one of the access points to the beach, 250 km north of Port Hedland and 365 km south of Broome. It is used for

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

, seashell collecting and other beach-based recreation.

References

Notes

Sources

* Livesey, N. J. G. (1993) ''Eighty-Mile Beach Area : supporting documentation for inclusion on the register of the National Estate : report to the Australian Heritage Commission and the Heritage Council of Western Australia, August 1993'' Murdoch, W.A. : Murdoch University. NEDP documentation ; no. 3:93 * * Stewart, R. R. (2005) ''Biophysical resource assessment of the Canning Coast, WA, including Roebuck Bay, Lagrange Bay and Eighty Mile Beach'' other authors - K. Fitzgerald and P. Kindleysides. Fremantle, W.A. : Dept. of Conservation and Land Management, Marine Conservation Branch,'"Data report: MRI/CAN,EMB/RBL,EMB-66/2005"

External links

* * {{Ramsar sites in Australia Kimberley (Western Australia) Ramsar sites in Australia Beaches of Western Australia Important Bird Areas of Western Australia IMCRA meso-scale bioregions