Shark bay is a large, shallow inlet located at the westernmost point in Australia, some 650 kilometers north of the city of Perth. In 1629, Dutch explorer Francois Pelsaert branded this desert area “a bare and cursed country, devoid of green or grass”. Later visitors recorded their impressions with such names as Hopeless reach, Useless inlet, and Disappointment loop.
But today over 120,000 people goes there annually to see this remarkable attraction called “Shark Bay”, so remarkable is this place that it was placed on the World Heritage list in 1991. If only Pelsaert would have looked under the water he would have found his meadows.
Shark Bay contains the largest and most diverse sea-grass meadows in the world, over 4000 square kilometers in all. The sea-grasses support a dizzying array of marine life; Juvenile Prawns, Tiny fish, and countless other marine creatures, it also provides ample food for some 10,000 resident dugongs or sea-cows, these gentle and inquisitive mammals, weighs up to 400 kilometers.
True to its name, Shark Bay hosts a large number of sharks of more than a dozen species. They include the: Fearsome tiger shark, and the gigantic but harmless Whale shark the biggest fish in the world, sharks share these water with Dolphins, exposing the myth that “where you find sharks you will not find Dolphins”.
The greatest attractions of Shark Bay are the Bottlenose Dolphins of Monkey Mia, a beach on the edge of Denham Peninsula. Monkey Mia is one of the few places in the World where wild Dolphins regularly visits to interact with the humans. No one knows for sure when this interaction began. In 1964, a local fisher woman threw a fish to a lone Dolphin splashing around her boat at Monkey Mia. The dolphin, which people called Charlie returned the next night and took a fish directly from the woman’s hand; soon Charlie friends joined him.
These days, Dolphins, often with their young, visit Monkey Mia beach most mornings. Crowds of excited visitors awaits their arrival, but only a few share in the feeding because Park Rangers wants to ensure that the animals do not become dependent on handouts, Nevertheless, all the people present gets a good view of the proceedings. “If only humans could enjoy this intimacy with all of earth’s creatures”.
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