Get up close and personal with the diverse wildlife and marine life of the Sandy Strait

806 km2 of the strait has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area because it supports about 120,000 non-breeding waders, including over 1% of the global populations of bar-tailed godwits, eastern curlews, great knots, grey-tailed tattlers, lesser sand plovers, pied oystercatchers, red-necked stints and red-capped plovers, as well as small numbers of the range-restricted mangrove honeyeater. 

The Great Sandy Strait is a sand passage estuary located between the mainland and the World Heritage listed Fraser Island, and it is teeming with wildlife and natural wonders. 

The Great Sandy Strait is the largest area of tidal swamps within the South East Queensland bioregion and is composed of a mixture of intertidal sand and mud flats. There are extended sea-grass beds, mangrove forests, salt flats and salt marshes, as well as freshwater paper-bark wetlands and coastal wallum swamps throughout the strait. The result is a mesmerising landscape everyone can enjoy.

With a mixture of rare species such as the patterned fens and an abundance of more commonly sighted species located in the area, the Great Sandy Strait is a natural phenomenon. The coastal wetlands are also of international significance for migratory birds, with 18 species listed under international migratory bird conservation agreements recorded.

Meanwhile, a variety of turtle species, dugong and humpback whales can also be found in the area, as well as endangered fish, such as Oxleyan Pygmy Perch and Honey Blue-eye.