Australian marine parks preserve important marine environments and underwater worlds – including the unique area of the ancient Bass Strait land bridge.
Underwater worlds
Stories of the seabed, ocean currents and marine life of the Bass Strait today.
Today the Bass Strait is a unique environment filled with colourful and diverse marine life, which has populated the waters since the ice age land bridge was inundated by the sea between about 15,000 years and about 8,000 years ago. Common dolphins are a familiar presence in the Bass Strait, attracted by the abundant food sources. Photograph by Ed Dunens. CC BY.
Read the stories
Mapping the seabed
Newly discovered reef systems within the Beagle Marine Park, now hotspots for sponge biodiversity, were once important shelter along the Bass Strait land bridge for First Peoples.
Fur seals and the Bass Strait
Bass Strait’s playful fur seals are now recovering from a close call with human commercial hunters who almost caused their extinction two hundred years ago.
The underwater food web of the Bass Strait
From the microscopic to macroscopic, each organism living beneath the waves has its own place in the food web of the Bass Strait.