Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2025L00100:front:0:p68
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2025L00100
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 216369–219383

the generations, giving unique insights into the flooding of this Country.

In the centre of the park, spanning much of the distance between the Kent Group and Hogan Island Group, are mesophotic (middle-light) reefs that rise 2 m to 5 m above the seabed.
They are thought to be relict coastal dunes that formed on the Ancient Land Bridge.

These mesophotic reefs, which are a rare ecosystem within Bass Strait, support a sessile invertebrate assemblage comprised of bryozoans, hydroids and a high diversity of temperate sponges. Abundant and diverse fish communities are associated with these mesophotic reefs and are dominated by butterfly perch, barber perch, jackass morwong, common gurnard perch, Melbourne silverbelly, Degen's leatherjacket, and rosy wrasse. At the time of making this plan, aggregations of many hundreds of predominantly female Port Jackson sharks have been observed in 2018 and 2024, indicating that these reef features are important for the species during winter foraging migrations to Bass Strait.

Rubble fields, comprised of broken bryozoan skeletons and dead and alive scallops, occur in the centre of the park and function as reefs in the hard substrate limited environment of Bass Strait. They provide important habitat for sessile filter feeding invertebrates including bryozoans, hydroids and sponges.

The shallower eastern section of the park is dominated by linear ridges less than 1 m in height that extend several kilometres. These low-profile ridges are sometimes covered by shell hash and gravel that support a diverse sessile filter feeding invertebrate community dominated by bryozoans and sponges.

The deeper, south-western part of the park is sediment-dominated and contains extensive mobile dune fields less than 1 m high with patches of doughboy scallops.

The park includes biologically important foraging areas for many seabirds, including 6 species of albatross (including the endangered shy albatross; the vulnerable black browed, Campbell, Indian yellow nosed and wandering albatrosses; and Bullers albatross), white faced storm petrel, common diving petrel, short-tailed shearwater and little penguin. There are also biologically important areas in the park for white shark, southern right whale and pygmy
blue whale.

Humpback whales and short-tailed shearwaters (mutton birds) are culturally significant species, as their seasonal movements are in songlines and dreaming for some First Nations groups.

The park contains habitats, species and ecological communities associated with the Southeast Shelf Transition provincial bioregion and the Twofold Shelf and Flinders mesoscale bioregions.

The key ecological features represented in the park include:

       * shelf rocky reefs and hard substrate – includes mesophotic reefs between the Kent Group and Hogan Island Group.

Two historic shipwrecks occur in the park. In the north-west of the park lies the SS Queensland  an iron screw steamship which sank in 1876 after colliding with another steamer while