Western Kangaroo Island Marine Park
Western Kangaroo Island Marine Park (formerly Western Kangaroo Island Commonwealth Marine Reserve) is a marine protected area located south of South Australia in waters within the Australian Exclusive economic zone to the south-west of Kangaroo Island and ranging in depth from 15 metres (49 feet) to 165 metres (541 feet).[3] It was gazetted in November 2012.[1] It was renamed on 11 October 2017.[4] It is part of a group of Australian marine parks managed by the Department of the Environment and Energy known as the South-west Marine Parks Network. It adjoins the Western Kangaroo Island Marine Park managed by the Government of South Australia which it both bounds on its north-west side and fully encloses the portion of the state marine park surrounding Lipson Reef near its eastern extent.[5][3] The marine park includes ecosystems representative of the bioregion known as the "Spencer Gulf Shelf Province", two "key ecological features" consisting of firstly of a feature known as the "Kangaroo Island Pool" and the associated "Eyre Peninsula upwelling" both notable for their "high productivity, breeding and feeding aggregations" and secondly of a feature described as "Ancient coastline" within a depth range of 90–120 metres (300–390 ft) and as being of "high productivity", a calving area for southern right whale and feeding areas for the following species - Australian sea lion, blue whale, Caspian tern, great white shark, short-tailed shearwater and sperm whale.[3] The marine park consists of two zones - a marine national park zone (IUCN Category II) with an area of 120 square kilometres (46 square miles) and a special purpose zone (IUCN Category VI) with an area of 2,215 square kilometres (855 square miles).[2][3] See alsoReferences
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