The Mermaid Reef Marine Park (previously known as the Mermaid Reef Marine National Nature Reserve) is an

Australian marine park Australian marine parks (formerly Commonwealth marine reserves) are marine protected areas located within Australian waters and are managed by the Australian government. These waters generally extend from three nautical miles off the coast to the ...

in the

Rowley Shoals The Rowley Shoals is a group of three atoll-like coral reefs south of the Timor Sea, about west of Broome on the northwestern Australian coast, centred on , on the edge of one of the widest continental shelves in the world. Each atoll covers a ...

, located approximately north-west of Broome,

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. The marine park covers an area of and is assigned IUCN category II. It is one of 13 parks managed under the North-west Marine Parks Network, and lies adjacent to the

Argo-Rowley Terrace Marine Park The Argo-Rowley Terrace Marine Park (formerly known as the Argo-Rowley Terrace Commonwealth Marine Reserve) is an Australian marine park offshore of Western Australia. It encompasses the protected areas of the Rowley Shoals, about north-west ...

Conservation values

Species and habitat

*Important areas for sharks including the

grey reef shark The grey reef shark or gray reef shark (''Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos'', sometimes misspelled ''amblyrhynchus'' or ''amblyrhinchos'') is a species of requiem shark, in the family (biology), family Requiem shark, Carcharhinidae. One of the most com ...

, the whitetip reef shark and the silvertip whaler. *Important foraging area for

marine turtle Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhe ...

s. *Important area for

toothed whale The toothed whales (also called odontocetes, systematic name Odontoceti) are a parvorder of cetaceans that includes dolphins, porpoises, and all other whales with teeth, such as beaked whales and the sperm whales. 73 species of toothed wha ...

dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal in the cetacean clade Odontoceti (toothed whale). Dolphins belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontopori ...

tuna A tuna (: tunas or tuna) is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae ( mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bul ...

and

billfish The billfish are a group (Xiphioidea) of saltwater fish, saltwater predatory fish characterised by prominent pointed beak, bills (rostrum (anatomy), rostra), and by their large size; some are longer than . Extant billfish include sailfish and m ...

. *Important resting and feeding sites for migratory seabirds *The reserve, along with the adjacent

Rowley Shoals Marine Park The Rowley Shoals is a group of three atoll-like coral reefs south of the Timor Sea, about west of Broome, Western Australia, Broome on the northwestern Australian coast, centred on , on the edge of one of the widest continental shelf, continen ...

, provides the best geological example of shelf atolls in Australia

Ecology and bioregion

* Mermaid Reef has national and international significance due to its pristine character, coral formations, geomorphic features and diverse marine life. It is a key area for over 200 species of

hard coral Scleractinia, also called stony corals or hard corals, are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton. The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mo ...

s and 12 classes of

soft coral Alcyonacea is the old scientific order name for the informal group known as "soft corals". It is now an unaccepted name for class Octocorallia. It became deprecated . The following text should be considered a historical, outdated way of treatin ...

s with coral formations in pristine condition. *Examples of the seafloor habitats and communities of the Northwest Transition provincial bioregion.

History

The Marine Park was originally proclaimed on 10 April 1991 as the Mermaid Reef Marine National Nature Reserve. It was proclaimed as a Commonwealth Marine Reserve in 2013 and later renamed Mermaid Reef Marine Park on 9 October 2017.

Summary of protection zones

The Mermaid Reef Marine park has been assigned

IUCN protected area category IUCN protected area categories, or IUCN protected area management categories, are categories used to classify protected areas in a system developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The enlisting of such areas is part ...

II and is wholly zoned as a National Park. The following table is a summary of the zoning rules within the Mermaid Reef Marine Park:

References

External links

North-west Marine Parks Network - Parks Australia

North-west Commonwealth Marine Reserves Network - environment.gov.au (outdated)
{{Protected areas managed by the Australian Government , state=collapsed Australian marine parks