Faure Island Sanctuary - Wildlife

Shark Bay Mouse Faure Island sanctuary

The Faure Island sanctuary is a key breeding area for many seabirds, and expansive mudflats surrounding the island provide vital feeding grounds for thousands of wading birds that migrate from as far away as Siberia.

AWC supported the first multi-disciplinary biological survey of the island in 2000, when specialist zoologists and botanists from the Western Australian Museum, South Australian Museum, Western Australian Department of Conservation and Land Management, and AWC staff, spent two weeks documenting the biodiversity.

The survey confirmed the suspicion that the native mammal fauna of Faure Island had long become extinct, possibly due to the presence of feral cats. The only mammals present on Faure Island at the time of the survey were the introduced feral goat, cat, and house mouse. However, the first sub-fossil search of the island (incorporated into the biological survey design) confirmed the former presence of at least five native mammal species. The exact timing of these extinctions from the island is unknown.

An important aim of the management of the Faure Island sanctuary was to recreate a habitat that would once again support a suite of threatened mammal species, by removing stock and feral cats). Four threatened mammal species have already been reintroduced onto the island:

• Burrowing Bettong (Boodie)
• Shark Bay Mouse
• Banded Hare-wallaby
• Western Barred Bandicoot 

The reintroduction of the Greater Stick-nest Rat is planned in the near future.