page_title: Solitary Islands Marine Park
section_title: Fish
hierarchical_section_title: Solitary Islands Marine Park / Fauna / Fish
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of a Grey Nurse Shark (Carcharias taurus). Green Island, South West Rocks, NSW
context_page_description: Solitary Islands Marine Park is a marine park in New South Wales State waters, Australia. It adjoins the Solitary Islands Marine Reserve and was declared under the Marine Parks Act 1997 in January 1998. Prior to this it was declared a marine reserve in 1991. The Park was one of the first declared in NSW and stretches along the northern NSW coast, from Muttonbird Island, Coffs Harbour, to Plover Island near Sandon River, 75 kilometres to the north. It includes coastal estuaries and lakes and extends from the mean high water mark, to three nautical miles out to sea, covering an area of around 72 000 hectares. There are five main islands in the Park, North Solitary Island, North West Solitary Island, South West Solitary Island, South Solitary Island and Split Solitary Island, as well as other significant outcrops such as Muttonbird Island and submerged reefs.
  On 15 May 1770, Lieut. James Cook sailed past the Solitary Islands and noted their position in his journal, “Between 2 and 4 we had some small rocky Islands between us and the land the southernmost lies in the Latitude of 30°10' and the northernmost in 29°58' and about 2 Leagues or more from the land.”
context_section_description: 858 species of fish are found in the Solitary Islands Marine Park.  The area around Pimpernel Rock, at the northern end of the Solitary Islands Marine Reserve (Commonwealth Waters) is favoured by the endangered Grey nurse shark (Carcharias taurus), who has a preference for gutters in reefs and submarine caves. However the most significant habitat for the grey nurse shark in the Marine Park is South Solitary Island, though they do occur throughout the park. The Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) is also seen around Pimpernel Rock. There are many species of reef fish in the Park, including snapper (Pagrus auratus), tusk fish (Choerodon venustus), blue morwong (Nemadactylus douglasii) and pearl perch (Glaucosoma scapulare) as well as pelagic species such as kingfish (Seriola lalandi) that are attractive to commercial and recreational fishermen.  Commercial fishing fleets operate from Coffs Harbour and Wooli.
  The area on the western side of North West Rock (off North Solitary Island) is known as "Fish Soup” and has a very high diversity of fish.  Tropical predators like spangled emperor (Lethrinus nebulosus), bigeye trevally (Caranx sexfasciatus), mangrove jack (Lutjanus argentimaculatus), moses perch (Lutjanus russellii) and brown sweetlip (Plectorhinchus gibbosus) occur with mulloway (Argyrosomus japonicus), snapper, red morwong (Cheilodactylus fuscus), silver trevally (Pseudocaranx georgianus), bream (Acanthopagrus spp.) and tarwhine (Rhabdosargus sarba).
caption: Grey Nurse Shark
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