Flinders Marine Park

Flinders Marine Park stretches from coastal waters off Flinders Island and far out into the deep ocean. Western areas of the marine park are popular for fishing.

Along its length, the marine park protects diverse seafloor habitats, including:

• a steep continental slope cut through by deep underwater canyons
• sheer rocky walls and rocky outcrops supporting lace corals and sponges
• sandy and muddy sediments that are home to giant crabs and a wide variety of fishes
• a large seamount.

The marine park is an important foraging area for:

• albatrosses (wandering, black-browed, yellow-nosed and shy)
• northern giant petrels
• Gould’s petrels
• cape petrels
• orcas
• white sharks.

Harrison’s dogfish, a threatened shark species, was recently discovered in the park.

The marine park is situated to the east of Flinders Island. It covers 27,043 square kilometres, with depths from about 40 metres to over 3000 metres.

It has National Park and Multiple Use zones.

Explore

Areas east of Flinders Island and off the north-east tip of Tasmania offer good fishing for experienced, well-equipped fishers when conditions are suitable to head out.

Fishing is allowed in the western part of Flinders Marine Park. Be sure to check the zoning.

Find out more about fishing in Tasmanian waters.

Discover

Harrison’s dogfish is a slow-growing deep sea shark with startling green eyes.

These sharks used to be killed for their liver oil, but numbers plummeted. They’re now listed as Conservation Dependent under Australian environmental law.

To help the species recover, some areas where they breed are closed to all fishing. This ensures they don’t get accidentally taken as bycatch.

No-take National Park zones in Flinders and adjacent Australian Marine Parks provide areas of safe habitat for these animals.

Read more about Harrison’s dogfish.

Select the park area on the map below to see what you can do in the Flinders Marine Park.