true

ISRA FACTSHEETS

AUSTRALIA AND SOUTHEAST INDIAN OCEAN

ISRA FACTSHEETS

AUSTRALIA AND SOUTHEAST INDIAN OCEAN

Raine Island ISRA

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Raine Island ISRA

Raine Island

Summary

Raine Island is located in far north Queensland, Australia. It is situated ~130 km east of the Australian mainland. It comprises a small, detached reef with a sandy cay on the western side. The habitat is characterised by sandy beaches, a reef flat, rubble, forereef, and an outer reef slope. It is influenced by the North Queensland Current, and by winds and waves coming mainly from the southeast. The area overlaps with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and with the Raine Island, Moulter and Maclennan Cays Key Biodiversity Area. Within this area there are: feeding areas (Tiger Shark Galeocerdo cuvier).

Raine Island

Raine Island

DESCRIPTION OF HABITAT

Raine Island is located in far north Queensland, Australia. It is situated ~130 km east of mainland Australia. It is a small, detached reef situated offshore from the Great Barrier Reef. The area comprises an oval patch reef with a shallow reef flat and a small sand cay on the leeward (western) side (Dawson & Smithers 2014). The fringing reef steeply drops to ~200–300 m depth. The habitat is characterised by sandy beaches, a reef flat, rubble, forereef, and an outer reef slope (Dawson & Smithers 2014).

The area is influenced by the North Queensland Current and by wind and waves from the Coral Sea, predominantly coming from north-northeast to south-southeast (Choukroun et al. 2010; Dawson & Smithers 2014). Strong southeasterly winds blow on ~85% of days, particularly between May–November (Dawson & Smithers 2014). Wind direction is more varied during the austral summer from December–March. Deepwater waves break on the windward, eastern side of the reef. The diurnal tidal range is ~1.8 m, and water depth on the reef flat during low tide is ~1.5–2.0 m (Dawson & Smithers 2014).

Raine Island overlaps with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park – Marine National Park zone (UNEP-WCMC & IUCN 2025) and with the Raine Island, Moulter and Maclennan Cays Key Biodiversity Area (KBA 2025).

The Important Shark and Ray Area is benthic and pelagic and is delineated from surface waters (0 m) to a depth of 300 m based on the bathymetry of the area.

CRITERION C

SUB-CRITERION C2 – FEEDING AREAS

Raine Island is an important feeding area for one shark species.

Tiger Sharks seasonally feed on Green Turtle Chelonia mydas in this area (Fitzpatrick et al. 2012; Hammerschlag et al. 2016; K Robertson pers. comm. 2025). Raine Island has the largest nesting concentration of Green Turtles in the world, with up to 12,000 individuals nesting here each season, peaking from November–April (Limpus et al. 2003). Ten Tiger Sharks and eight Green Turtles were tracked with satellite tags between 2002–2008, and core habitat calculated as the 25% Kernel Density Estimates (Fitzpatrick et al. 2012; Hammerschlag et al. 2016). The tags recorded locations whenever they were at the surface and an ARGOS satellite was overhead. During the nesting season, the entire core habitat of Green Turtles (848 km2) was inside the core habitat of Tiger Sharks (1,090 km2), while outside the nesting season there was no overlap at all as turtles migrated to feeding sites in Torres Strait. Tiger Sharks also spent more time at the surface inside the turtle core habitat (average = 3.8 ARGOS messages per day) than outside it (average = 2.9 messages). As the hunting of turtles by Tiger Sharks likely involves sub-surface stalking, the result means that at Raine Island, the sharks likely feed on dead turtles that wash off the island and/or weakened turtles in the surf zone (Hammerschlag et al. 2016). This is consistent with observations of Tiger Shark behaviour in this area (Limpus et al. 2003; K Robertson pers. obs. 2025). Green Turtle mortality depends on the number of nesting individuals but can be up to 2,000 individuals per season (Limpus et al. 2003), highlighting an abundant and easy prey resource for Tiger Sharks. Contemporary observations by scientists from 2015–2024 show that feeding events of Tiger Sharks continue to occur regularly in this area, particularly in November–December (K Robertson pers. comm. 2025).

Raine Island

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