Shark Bay, Western Australia

While the site is listed for its natural values, its cultural significance is equally undeniable. Shark Bay, or Gathaagudu, meaning ‘a place of Two Waters’, is the traditional home of the Malgana (Central), Nanda (South) and Yinggarda (North East Coast) peoples.

The waters, islands and surrounding land of the Bay boast exceptional natural features, namely vast seagrass beds, a large dugong (sea cow) population, and an abundance of stromatolites (hard, dome-shaped deposits of limestone formed by microbial communities):

Seagrasses (wirriya jalyanu) are aquatic flowering plants that grow in marine waters in temperate and tropical regions. Australia has one of the world’s highest diversities of species of seagrass, with twelve of its many species being found in the Bay.

With an area of 4,800 km², Shark Bay’s seagrass beds are globally significant in size. They have formed over thousands of years, as sediments, broken-down shells and skeletons of marine life have become trapped amongst the seagrasses in the Bay's shallow waters.

The most impressive seagrass bed is the Wooramel Bank, which covers an area of 1,030 km² along the length of the Bay’s eastern coast. It is the largest structure of its type in the world and provides an enormous amount of habitat for mangroves, fish, molluscs and crustaceans.

Located within Shark Bay, Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve hosts the most diverse and abundant stromatolites in the world. Also known as ‘living fossils’, stromatolites are living representatives of life over 3.5 billion years ago when there was no other complex life on Earth.

Hamelin Pool harbours these unique microbial communities in a hypersaline environment with high evaporation and low precipitation. The hypersalinity of the pool is due to the water flow being partially restricted by the seagrass banks that comprise its northern boundary.

Stromatolites are culturally important to Malgana people:

“They are our old people, they carry the spirits of our Malgana ancestors. Removing them for scientific purposes makes us feel sad.” Ada Fossa, Malgana Elder.

Shark Bay is unique for its seagrass, dugongs and stromatolites, but also for many other features along its 1,500 km of w-shaped coastline, which is formed by the Edel Land Peninsula and Dirk Hartog Island to the West, Peron Peninsula in the centre, and the eastern coastal strip:

The spectacular rolling red sands of the Peron Peninsula are interspersed with salty depressions known locally as birridas, creating a dramatic picture against the backdrop of the surrounding seas and sweeping shell beaches.

The Francois Peron National Park, located on the central Peron Peninsula, boasts a profusion of smaller peninsulas, islands, lagoons and bays, which create a diversity of landscapes and exceptional coastal scenery. 

On the western side of the peninsula, the shores of Big Lagoon are abundant with mangrove and samphire and, from the air, the bright-blue waters of the lagoon stand out as it snakes its way through the red earth.

The most westerly part of Shark Bay is Dirk Hartog Island, named after the man who, in 1616, left a pewter plate inscribed with details of his journey as evidence of the first European landing on Australia’s west coast. The island is known as Wirruwana to the traditional owners.

The Zuytdorp Cliffs extend 160 km to the south from the tip of the Edel Land Peninsula. This rugged and spectacular stretch of coastline offers formations of exceptional natural beauty, and are the traditional lands of the Nanda and Malgana people.

In terms of Shark Bay’s wildlife, the site is renowned not just for its considerable dugong population, but also for the rest of its rich marine life, and it provides a refuge for a number of other globally threatened species. The fauna of Shark Bay includes:

There are at least 28 species of shark living
in the Bay; common ones include the tiger shark (thaaka) and the whale shark. They can often be spotted from the shore, especially during the summer. The Bay was named after this fish by William Dampier, an English explorer, in 1699.

Increasing numbers of humpback and southern right whales visit Shark Bay every year, travelling huge distances from the colder waters where they feed to the tropical waters of their breeding grounds. 
 
The Bay is home to over 2,000 dolphins of the Indo-Pacific bottlenose species.

At least 100 species of reptiles and amphibians live in Shark Bay, including one-third of all of Australia’s dragon lizard species.

Native species like the Shark Bay mouse and rufous hare-wallaby have been successfully reintroduced to Dirk Hartog Island, having disappeared from the mainland, thanks to an Ecological Restoration Project named Return to 1616 and the eradication of all feral animals.

The shallow waters of Shark Bay are home to at least 218 bivalve species of mollusc. The hypersaline water of the eastern bay, which is twice as salty as the ocean, allows the Fragum cockle to thrive, forming a remarkable beach landscape made entirely of shells.