Pumicestone Passage, Bribie Island
The Pumicestone Passage is home to a wide variety of fauna and flora, some in abundance and others endangered.
Although we cannot guarantee sightings on a particular day, our cruises offer you the chance to sight Dugongs, Turtles, Dolphin, many varieties of birds, and land animals such as Kangaroos and the wild brumbies often seen on shore on Bribie. The region consists of lowland wetlands, the all important inter-tidal feeding banks and mangrove pockets. We offer an informative commentary and worksheets for school excursions.
Come for a day and be amazed for a lifetime.You will truly be surprised as to what this magnificent waterway offers that is in our own backyard and so accessible!
Some of the interesting wildlife you may see:
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.
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.
