Recent Sightings
The Marine Park
Pumicestone Passage
The Pumicestone Passage Marine Park area is preserved through the gazettal of Marine Parks, Environmental Parks and National Parks.
The extensive intertidal wetlands has brought about the inclusion of this area on three international environmental treaties CAMBA the Chinese migratory bird agreement, JAMBA the Japanese migratory bird agreement but the most important agreement of all is the RAMSAR Convention. The RAMSAR Convention is an international treaty signed by over 100 hundred countries with its strategy aimed at preserving intertidal feeding banks in both hemispheres and along the flyways of migratory bird species.
The international RAMSAR standing committee visited the Pumicestone Passage Marine Park in September 1995 and approximately 100 international delegates cruised the waterway in March 1996, comments received at the time was that this area was of truly international importance.
The Pumicestone Passage Marine Park was gazetted in January1986, the zoning removed all the commercial netting out of the creeks and placed a sunset clause on all existing license holders, if the license holder was not active, the license would laps. At the time of zoning the marine park 19 active commercial netting operators were working the Pumicestone Passage. By October 1996 this number had dropped to 10. On the 20th of October 1996 due to the State Government deciding to accelerate the process all commercial fishing was removed from the waterway and it is now for recreational and amateur activity only.
This marine park has the oldest registered fish habitat in Qld, "TRIPCONEY BIGHT" zoned in 1946. This area also includes the no-take zone for the park. Another very important feature for the marine park is the direct catchment area that is only 680 sq kms and includes 12 creeks.
Migratory Birds. The majority of migratory birds that spend the northern winter with us fly on average 10-15,000 kilometres arriving here in September and October from areas such as Siberia, Northern China & Mongolia and returning to the northern hemisphere in March and April. It is estimated in excess of two and a half million birds enter into Australian air space in their migratory movement each year. Queensland is home to approximately five to six hundred thousand birds with the Pumicestone Passage Marine Park and Moreton Bay home to around 10% of this number - 50-60,000 migratory birds. This area is now being acknowledged more and more as an important staging ground for the migratory birds heading further south during migration.
Dugong. The presence of seabed grass has resulted in a permanent number of Dugong being present in the Pumicestone Passage Marine Park with regular sightings taking place during the cruises. The Ferryman Vessel is part of the Qld "Department of Environment" Dugong monitoring program, this is as far south as the Dugong are found on the east coast of Australia. All registered sightings are recorded on a grid map with weather details etc and this is then loaded on to a central computer data base. Ferryman Cruises has taken part in conjunction with the Qld University in producing a science paper on the Dugong in the Pumicestone Passage Marine Park.
Dolphins are also regular visitors to the Pumicestone Passage Marine Park coming into the waterway in pods of about 10 at a time with the main species being the Bottlenose Dolphin with Indo Pacific visiting from time to time.
Jabiru's in March 1999 took over an Osprey nest and have been seen in this nest on a regular basis with most observers expecting chicks to appear in the spring. Unfortunately this nest was blown down and destroyed in extreme weather in May 2009 however the Jabiru are still sighted regularly in the area and there is hope they have built another nest close by however it will not be as obvious as the initial shared nest mentioned.
Eagles. The most common eagle seen on most cruises is the White Bellied Sea Eagle but we also see the Osprey as well as other predatory birds. Other Raptors regularly seen are the Whistling Kite and the Brahminy with nesting pairs often seen.
The intertidal feeding banks in the Pumicestone Passage Marine Park combined with the Moreton Bay area represent 30% of the intertidal feeding banks on the whole of the east coast of Australia.
Dingoes. The population of Dingoes on Bribie Island is considered to be between 40 and 50 and from time to time these are seen along the western shoreline of Bribie Island in area's such as Mission Point, Lime Pocket, Gallaghers Point.
Emus. Several families of Emu's are here but mainly stay to the central parts of the island.
There are also small numbers of wild horses, cattle as well as some wild pigs still on Bribie and evidence of these introduced animals can be seen regularly.