The Furneaux Group is a group of approximately 100 islands located at the eastern end of Bass Strait, between Victoria and Tasmania, Australia. The islands were named after British navigator Tobias Furneaux, who sighted the eastern side of these islands after leaving Adventure Bay in 1773 on his way to New Zealand to rejoin Captain James Cook. Navigator Matthew Flinders was the first European to explore the Furneaux Islands group, in the schooner in 1798, and later that year in the sloop .
The largest islands in the group are Flinders Island, Cape Barren Island, and Clarke Island. The group contains five settlements: Killiecrankie, Emita, Lady Barron, Cape Barren Island, and Whitemark on Flinders Island, which serves as the administrative centre of the Flinders Council. There are also some small farming properties on the remote islands.
After seals were discovered there in 1798, the Furneaux Group of islands became the most intensively exploited sealing ground in Bass Strait. A total of 29 islands in the Furneaux Group have been found to have some tangible link with sealing in the 19th century.Kostoglou, p.91.
The Aboriginal matriarch, Dolly Dalrymple, was born on the Furneaux Islands. Her mother was one of two Aboriginal women who had been kidnapped from northern Tasmania by the sealer George Briggs.
King Island, at the western end of Bass Strait, is not a part of the group.
Islands in the Group
Island Capital Other cities Area Population km2 sq miFurneaux Group Whitemark Lady Barron, The Corner, Emita, Killiecrankie 795Babel Island Group 0Babel Island 0Cat Island 0Fifty Foot Rock 0Other 0Storehouse Island 0Badger Island Group Badger Island Mount Chappell Island a3Badger Island South East Point 1Goose Island 0Inner Little Goose Island 0Little Badger Island 0Little Goose Island 0Mount Chappell Island 2Other Beagle Island North West Mount Chappell Islet 0Bass Pyramid Bass Pyramid 0Big Green Island Group Big Green Island East Kangaroo Island 6Big Green Island 4Chalky Island 0East Kangaroo Island 2Isabella Island 0Little Chalky Island 0Mile Island 0Other 0Cape Barren Island The Corner 67Clarke Island 1Craggy Island Craggy Island 0Flinders Island Whitemark Lady Barron 700Franklin Sound Islands Important Bird Area Great Dog Tin Kettle 14Anderson Island 0Boxen Island 0Briggs Islet 0Doughboy Island 0Great Dog Island Great Dog Island 10Lady Barron Island 0Little Anderson Island 0Little Dog Island Little Dog Island 0Little Green Island 0Long Island 0Neds Reef 0Other Spences Islands Big Black Reef, GVH Rock, Mid Woody Islet, Ram, Apple Orchard Point, Billy Goat Reefs, Fisher Island, Samphire Island 0Oyster Rocks East Oyster West Oyster 0Pelican Island 0Puncheon Island Puncheon Island 1Tin Kettle Island Tin Kettle 2Vansittart Island Bates Bay House Bay 1Inner Sister Island 0Other Little Island Shag Rock 0Outer Sister Island Outer Sister Island 0Pasco Island Group Roydon Island 0Marriott Reef 0Middle Pasco Islands 0North Pasco Island 0Other 0Roydon Island 0South Pasco Island 0Passage Island Group Passage Island 2Forsyth Island 0Gull Island 0Low Islets 0Moriarty Rocks 0Other Battery Island 0Passage Island Passage Island 2Spike Island Spike Island Little Spike Island 0Preservation Island Group Preservation Island 2Key Island 0Night Island 0Other a0Preservation Island Preservation Island Horseshoe Bay 2Rum Island 0Prime Seal Island Group Prime Seal Island 0Bird Island 0Low Islets South Low Middle Low, North Low 0Other 0Prime Seal Island Peacock Bay South Bay 0Wybalenna Island 0Sentinel Island 0Wright Rock 0Furneaux Group Whitemark Lady Barron, The Corner, Emita, Killiecrankie 795
Geology The islands contain granite from the Devonian period, as well as unconsolidated limestone and sand from Cenozoic periods. During the last ice age, a land bridge joined Tasmania to the Australian mainland through this group of islands.
See also
Furneaux bioregion Engaeus martigener List of islands of Tasmania
References
External links Birds of the Furneaux Islands Shipwrecks in the Furneaux Islands