Oil Slick Fouls Australia's World Heritage Shark Bay

PERTH, Western Australia, November 10, 2004 (ENS) - An oil slick stretching 12 kilometers long has been reported in the Shark Bay World Heritage area at the most westerly point of the Australian continent. It extends into the most important nesting site in the state for rare loggerhead turtles.

Authorities say the spill has affected an area between Crayfish Bay and False Entrance on the western side of Dirk Hartog Island. The spill is within the designated world heritage area but not within Shark Bay itself. The location is extremely remote and subject to very rough seas.

Shark Bay is located at the westernmost point of Australia. (Photo courtesy UNESCO)

"The members of our Environment Protection Unit will be assessing the nature and extent of the spill to determine what action needs to be taken," MacTiernan said.

The Department of Planning and Infrastructure will be working with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to identify the polluter. If the slick is identified as fuel, the maritime agency will help the Western Australia government by providing details of ships in the area over the past few days.

"If feasible we would then launch an investigation," a spokesman for AMSA said Tuesday.

The Western Australia Department of Conservation and Land Management said Tuesday that a decomposing whale could be the source of the slick.

Loggerhead turtle on Dirk Hartog Island. (Photo courtesy Dirk Hartog Island)

Humpback whales use Shark Bay as a migratory staging area, bottlenose dolphins frequent the bay, and the bay supports more than 10,000 dugong, about 12 percent of the world population.

Its stromatolites - colonies of algae which form hard, dome-shaped deposits - are among the oldest forms of life on Earth.

Of the 26 species of threatened Australian mammals, five are found on Shark Bay's Bemier and Dorre islands, according to a survey conducted by IUCN-The World Conservation Union.

The threatened mammals are the burrowing bettong, Bettongia lesueur; the rufous hare-wallaby, Lagorchestes hirsutus; the banded hare-wallaby, L. fasciatus; the Shark Bay mouse, Pseudomys praeconis; and the western barred bandicoot, Perameles bougainville.

The rich bird life in Shark Bay includes over 230 species, with 11 breeding marine birds.

Shark Bay is also an important nursery ground for crustaceans, fishes and coelenterates. The marine flora is dominated by seagrass beds providing a substratum for 100 species of zoophytes, juvenile fish and sea snakes. There are 323 fish species.

As its name suggests, large numbers of sharks including bay whalers, tiger sharks and hammerheads can be found in Shark Bay.