The Tasman Island, part of the Tasman Island Group, is an oval island with an area of , lying close to the south-eastern coast of Tasmania, Australia. The island is located in the Tasman Sea, situated off the Tasman Peninsula and is contained within the Tasman National Park.
The island is a plateau surrounded by steep dolerite cliffs, with its highest point near above sea level (asl) and an average plateau height of asl Tasmanian government list maps . The altitude and topography of the island is often incorrectly stated, which may be related to the common reference to the light on the lighthouse, which sits at approximately asl.
It is the site of the Tasman Island Lighthouse and weather station, which has been automated since 1976 and unstaffed since 1977. The weather station sits near the light house.
Flora and fauna Plants The island was once thickly forested. The forest has largely disappeared as a result of cutting the trees for firewood and of intense fires. When the lighthouse was staffed, the keepers kept livestock, including cattle, sheep and draught horses, and maintained grassland for their grazing. Areas of grassland remain along with other vegetation communities of heathy scrub, regenerating scrub, sheoak woodland, sedgeland and coastal mosaic. An important plant present is the rare Cape Pillar sheoak (Allocasuarina crassa).
Birds Tasman Island is a very important breeding site for fairy prions, with an estimated 300,000-700,000 pairs, making it the largest such colony in Tasmania and possibly in Australia. It has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports over 1% of the world population of the species. Other recorded breeding seabird species are little penguin (now extinct there as a breeding species), short-tailed shearwater and sooty shearwater. The swamp harrier has also bred on the island.
The breeding seabirds were preyed on by a feral cat population estimated at 50, feeding mainly on fairy prions and taking about 50,000 birds annually. The cats were eradicated by a baiting, trapping, and hunting program carried out in May 2010.
Other animals Australian and New Zealand fur seals use the rocky shore as a haul-out site, and the latter species has bred there in small numbers. Humpback whales pass through the surrounding waters. Reptiles recorded from the island include the metallic skink, White's skink, spotted skink and she-oak skink. A notable invertebrate, so far recorded only from Tasman Island, is the cricket Tasmanoplectron isolatum.Bryant, S.L.; and Shaw, J. (Eds). (2006). Tasman Island: 2005 flora and fauna survey. Hamish Saunders Memorial Trust, New Zealand and Biodiversity Conservation Branch, DPIW, Hobart, Nature Conservation Report Series 06/01.
Climate
Gallery
See also
List of islands of Tasmania
References
External links Restoring the Natural Values of Tasman Island