Bruny Island

Name: Codi
Price range: $

Curated by Dr Tonia Cochran and 17 others

Bruny hosts a rich human history, highly varied and exquisite natural landscapes, and is a wonderful place to find peace, solitude and to connect with wild nature.

kunanyi Sunset from Bligh Point landscape

About the region Articles about Bruny Island Conservation Things to Do Nature Community

About the region

Find peace, solitude and connect with wild nature

Located off the south-east coast of Tasmania, Australia, Bruny Island is surround by the D'Entrecasteux Channel, Storm Bay and the Southern Ocean.

Bruny Island / lunawanna-alonnah has a rich human history extending back 40,000 years, and layers of history and stories both moving, tragic and inspiring, colour its landscapes.

The island is an extraordinary microcosm of the nature of Tasmania, with grasslands, grand forests, coastal shrubs, rich and magical marine habitats and long wild stretches of coastline. Rich in birdlife, Bruny provides home to the threatened Forty-Spotted Pardalote, the Swift Parrot and the Wedge-Tailed Eagle along with important breeding sites for the short-tailed shearwater. A colony of White wallabies inhabit the southern reaches of Bruny’s Adventure Bay.

Beneath the waves of Bruny island’s varied coastline, rocky reefs and sandy gulches provide home and habitat to extraordinary sea creatures from ‘Leatherjacket’ and ‘Flathead’ fishes, to Crayfish, Little Penguins and migratory whales.

Two Tree - Point Dan Broun

Mars Bluff - Jonathan Esling

Adventure Bay - Jonathan Esling

White Wallaby "Gidday" Bruny Island Warwick Berry

White Wallaby - Warwick Berry

Adventure Bay, Bruny Island

Bligh Rocks view to Cape Queen Elizabeth, Bruny Island

Mars Bluff walk, Bruny Island

Australian Fur Seal

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Articles about Bruny Island

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Nature as music

A lot of our music is very much to a beat that's super regular, and it feels quite grid-like. Through Nature, you can start to...

A thriving island arts community

Growing up on Bruny Island was incredible. There's a strong community of people engaged in making art that is kind of born of the island...

Bruny Island: eastern quoll stronghold

Bruny Island is an amazingly special place. Someone once said to me that Bruny Island is a shining example of what Tasmania could be. And...

A place of wild diversity

Bruny Island - an island, off an island, off an island - is home to a phenomenal array of wildlife, says specialist guide with Inala...

Mars Bluff Jonathan Esling

Conservation

Preserving Bruny Island for future generations

Bruny Island is home to important areas of Old Growth forests, very high biodiversity values, and provides important habitat for threatened species including the Swift Parrot, Tasmanian Wedge-tailed eagle and Forty-Spotted Pardalote. The island is home to important threatened lowland and grassy vegetation communities and is of immense cultural heritage significance, including particularly to Tasmania’s Aboriginal community.

Conservation efforts for Bruny Island include the proposal to extend formal reserves and Parks on Bruny island, the need to secure permanent protection of Bruny Island’s native forests from logging, the eradication of feral cats, better protection of Bruny Island’s extraordinarily diverse and spectacular marine environment, and improved protection and care for nature on private land.

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Conservation efforts for Bruny Island

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The magic of Bruny Island

"It's just a place that you feel very alive and you feel nature feeling very alive around you," says specialist guide with Inala Nature Tours, Cat Davidson of Bruny Island in southern Tasmania. It has amazing, diverse habitat types, specialist birds and animals and a strong community. It is home.

Rare and elusive: the two Bruny birds on visitor wish lists

We will often be sent a wish list by someone before they even arrive on Bruny Island, Inala Nature Tours guide Cat Davidson says of visiting bird-watchers. Nearly every single time the critically-endangered swift parrot or the endangered forty-spotted pardalote is high on the list.

Species, emotion and place

Take a moment to think about a species you care about, and the emotions you feel when you think about the interactions you've had. You might feel a sense of magic or a loss of words. Ecologist and PhD student Edith Shum wants to understand that feeling and how it connects to place and environmental change.

Protecting Bruny's beach-dwellers

Dog management on Bruny Island is a big issue, writes bird ecologist Dr Eric Woehler. He has many photos of dogs predating on vulnerable eggs, chicks and adult nesting birds - and he's urging dog owners to put them on a lead.

Bruny Island Bird Festival

It's well documented that people with a connection to Nature - or to something they like - are far more active in conserving it, writes BirdLife Tasmania's Karen Dick. The Bruny Island Bird Festival occurs every two years and is a critical event to help develop that connection. It's also a time to inspire the next generation.

Packed hall attends Bruny launch

On a wild windswept day, a packed Adventure Bay hall joined Inala, the Bruny Island Environment Network and Kuno's event "Crowdsourcing the Nature of Bruny"

Life on Earth Photography Workshop

A photographer alert to the environment sees more than a simple landscape. Photograph: Nick Monk

Bruny Island crucial for the Swift Parrot

Bruny Island is one of the most important breeding habitats for the Swift Parrot. It has the habitat that the Swift Parrots need to produce their chicks in tree hollows, and it is also free of the Sugar Glider – a key introduced predator.

Things to Do

Visiting Bruny Island

Bruny Island (Nuenonne: Lunawanna-alonnah) is a critical refuge for a myriad of rare and threatened wildlife and a globally significant haven for birds.

Activities

Snorkelling and diving

Surfing

Trail Running

Sailing

Nature & Heritage

Landscape features

Wildlife

Marine life

Conservation Reserves

Heritage Sites

Villages / Towns

Explore map

Bruny Island Adventure Bay Jonathan Esling

Nature

Discover the plants and wildlife that call Bruny Island home

Bruny is home to wild beaches, rare birdlife, rugged sea-cliffs, a myriad of sea creatures, and ecosystems from kelp forests to coastal grasses and scrubland through to grand forests.

People have lived on Bruny Island for more than 40,000 years. The mighty sea-cliffs that presided over the first meetings between Europeans and the world’s oldest culture, remain much as they did more than 200 years ago - still clothed in forest, and hammered by the swells of the Southern Ocean. Seabirds that are now rare still make their homes on Bruny’s coasts.

White beaches stretch for uninterrupted miles, and the island’s convoluted coastline creates a huge diversity of marine habitats and spectacular coastal scenery. Beneath the waves, rocky reefs and sandy gulches provide home and habitat to extraordinary sea creatures from ‘Leatherjacket’ and ‘Flathead’ fishes, to Crayfish, Little Penguins and migratory whales.

Bruny Island is rich in wildlife – from being a stronghold for the Eastern Quoll, whilst also being a globally significant bird area – with many birds including the threatened Forty-Spotted Pardalote, Swift Parrot, the Tasmanian Wedge-Tailed Eagle and the exquisite Pink Robin all found on Bruny.

The nature of Bruny Island

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Forty-spotted Pardalote

One of the world's rarest birds, the Forty-Spotted Pardalote's remaining stronghold is on Bruny Island and Maria Island, off Tasmania

Pied Oystercatcher

The Pied Oystercatcher is a large wading shore-bird with a black face, back and chest, a white belly, white tail with black band at its end and a white wing-bar visible when flying. Its beak is a bright orange.

Myrtle beech

The Myrtle beech, or simply 'Myrtle' is the dominant species of Tasmania's rainforests. Myrtle trees can grow up to 55m tall, and have a heart-shaped dark green leaf with a tiny serrated edge.

Black Currawong

The currawong is a bird found only in Tasmania, frequents forests, and is a glossy all-black colour with a heavy black bill, small white tip to its tail and wingtips, and bright-yellow eyes.

Bruny Island galleries

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Bruny Island - A Photographer's Paradise

Bruny Island is an island, off an island, off an island, surrounded by islands. Image: Nick Monk

Dark Sky Sanctuaries

The aurora australis lights the skies of Southwest Tasmania. The next Dark Sky Sanctuary? Image: Dan Broun

Bruny Island Coastline

Bruny Island has an intricate, complex, beautiful and varied coastline, ranging from sheltered inlets, shallow bays, mudflats, lagoons, and grand sea-cliffs, through to long sandy ocean facing beaches.

Bruny Island wildlife

Bruny Island is a haven for rare and unique birds and animals, and is one of the best bird-watching spots in Australia.

Community

Engage with the Bruny Island community

With a permanent population of about 600 plus a healthy community of ‘shackies’ that visit and stay on Bruny Island regularly, there is a rich nurturing community life on Bruny Island, with a proud people who have a strong sense of place and a deep love for their island.

Karen Dick

Karen Dick is an expert in ecology and birds and is the convenor of BirdLife Tasmania

Andrew Hunter

Andrew is the campaigns manager at BirdLife Australia.

Bob Graham

Bob Graham is a professional geographer and convenor of the Bruny Island Environment Network

Cat Davidson

Cat is a nature guide who lives on Bruny Island and is a specialist bird and ecology guide with Inala Nature Tours.

David Boyer

Bruny Island resident for 20 years, and enthusiastic naturalist

Dan Broun

Dan Broun is an experienced photo-journalist and passionate advocate for wild nature

Edith Shum

Edith is an ecologist pursuing a PhD at the University of Tasmania, exploring how species shape our connection to places in the context of environmental change.

Dr Eric Woehler

Dr Eric Woehler (OAM) is a seabird and shorebird ecologist based in lutruwita/Tasmania who has been involved in research, management and conservation of birds and their habitats his entire life.

Dr Andrew Hingston

Dr Andrew Hingston is an expert in Tasmanian birds.

Dr Tonia Cochran

Dr Tonia Cochran is a zoologist, experienced naturalist and owner of Inala Nature Tours.

Julius Schwing

Julius Schwing is an award winning improvising guitarist and composer from Bruny Island, Lutruwita/Tasmania. Born in Vienna, he started playing guitar at age nine and since the age of thirteen has performed in Australia, Europe, India, New Zealand, Canada and...