FINDING SALISBURY
AG Society sponsorship is helping to survey one of our most remote islands.
ON THE EDGE of the continental shelf in the wild Southern Ocean lies Salisbury Island, the farthest offshore island in the Recherche Archipelago off Western Australia. Due to its remote location, Salisbury has never been formally surveyed. But the AGS-sponsored Finding Salisbury team is rectifying that.
As part of a five-month survey the team is conducting field work on the island and complementing what they find with data gathered by state-of-the-art drone technology and underwater cameras. The work will provide a critical baseline audit of the island’s wildlife, including black-flanked rock-wallabies, New Zealand fur seals (pictured), threatened Australian sea lions and great white sharks in the surrounding sea. At the same time, a botanical survey is underway and an archaeologist is looking for evidence of human occupation from the time when the island was connected to the mainland at the end of the last Ice Age. Finding Salisbury hopes the data can help develop a protection and management strategy for the island and its surrounds, including the monitoring and control of threats such as invasive weeds. For updates on the survey, head to: facebook.com/SalisburyIsland