Passage Island (Tasmania)
island in Tasmania, Australia
The Passage Island, part of the Passage Group within the Furneaux Group, is a 253-hectare (630-acre) granite and dolerite island, located in Bass Strait south of Cape Barren Island, in Tasmania, in south-eastern Australia.
History
Large numbers of fur seals were seen on the island in 1798 by Matthew Flinders and sealers were later reported visiting the island early in the 19th century.
The island is a private island with leasehold tenure, with a pastoral lease that has been used for grazing cattle. Improvements on the island include airstrips and a small residence. With the Forsyth and Gull islands, the Passage Island forms part of the Forsyth, Passage and Gull Islands Important Bird Area (IBA), identified as such by BirdLife International because it supports over 1% of the world populations of little penguins and black-faced cormorants.
Besides Passage Island, other islands that comprise the Passage Group include the Forsyth, Gull, Battery, and Spike islands, and the Low Islets and the Moriarty Rocks.
Fauna
Recorded breeding seabird, wader and waterbird species include little penguin, short-tailed shearwater, Pacific gull, silver gull, sooty oystercatcher and Cape Barren goose. Apart from cattle, mammals present are the introduced European rabbit, house mouse and a species of rat. Reptiles present include White's skink and the metallic skink.
The public source identifies “Passage Island (Tasmania)” as island in Tasmania, Australia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Passage, Island and Tasmania.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Passage Island (Tasmania)”, the useful work is to connect “island in Tasmania, Australia” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7142463. Authority coordinates are -40.500, 148.333. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1798.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Passage Island (Tasmania)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.