Ceduna

History

The Wirangu people once lived over the area including Ceduna. Sea level rise 18,000 to 7,500 years ago completely displaced inhabitants of previous coastal areas and resulted in dramatic changes in distributions of peoples. Matthew Flinders, on his voyage in the Investigator, anchored in Fowlers Bay on 28 January 1802. He went on to explore the coast and named Denial Bay, Smoky Bay and the islands of Nuyts Archipelago. He was disappointed to find no river and gave the name Denial Bay because of "the deceptive hope we had formed of penetrating by it some distance into the interior of the country". French expedition leader Nicolas Baudin visited Murat Bay after meeting with Flinders and named it after Joachim Murat. He also named the point of Thevenard after the Admiral and Minister of Marine Antoine-Jean-Marie Thevenard, and Decres Bay after Denis Decres, duke of the First French Empire. The first European exploration of the hinterland was during August–September 1839 by John Hill and Samuel Stephens, using the chartered brig Rapid as a base. Hill reported to Governor Gawler that although the bay was "valuable", the hinterland was "waterless", thereby stalling European interest. There was a whaling station on nearby St Peter Island during the 1850s before settlement. The Commissioner of Crown Lands, faced with widespread agitation to open West Coast lands for agricultural settlement, invited three farmers in July 1887 to inspect the lands between Streaky Bay and Western Australia. They were optimistic about the area and recommended that the necessary surveys be started at once. In 1889 the Government in Adelaide formalised the Far West with survey lines. In June 1901, the town of Ceduna was proclaimed. For many years, locals called the township Murat Bay and it…

Most-observed species

• Silver Gull

  Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae (Stephens, 1826) · Aves
  232
• Pacific Gull

  Larus pacificus Latham, 1801 · Aves
  187
• Singing Honeyeater

  Gavicalis virescens (Vieillot, 1817) · Aves
  178
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  146
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  118
• Rock Pigeon

  Columba livia J.F.Gmelin, 1789 · Aves
  106
• Pied Cormorant

  Phalacrocorax varius (Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  103
• Welcome Swallow

  Hirundo neoxena Gould, 1842 · Aves
  103