Marine park · Western Australia

Shark Bay Marine Park

Facts about this park from CAPAD 2024 and the world data on Biohotspot. Each figure is computed from the dataset named beside it; a figure that is missing or fails a check is left out.

Area: 7,137 km²
IUCN category Ia: 5.1 %
Gazetted: 1990
Open layers with data: 215

The park

Shark Bay covers 7,137 km².CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
CAPAD 2024 holds 32 records for this park.CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
It has 17 named zones.CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
5.1 % of the park (363 km²) is in zones of IUCN category Ia, strict nature reserve.CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
CAPAD lists it as Marine Park.CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
Its managing authority in CAPAD is WA_DBCA (Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, WA).CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
It was gazetted in 1990 (CAPAD gazettal date).CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0

Area by IUCN category
IUCN category	km²	Share
II	5,243	73.5 %
IV	1,531	21.4 %
Ia	363	5.1 %

Named zones in CAPAD
Zone	IUCN	km²
General Use	II	5,239
Wooramel Special Purpose Zone (Seagrass Protection)	IV	1,215
Freycinet Special Purpose Zone (Habitat Protection)	IV	251
Disappointment Reach Sanctuary Zone	Ia	226
Lharidon Bight Sanctuary Zone	Ia	55.3
Gladstone Special Purpose Zone (Dugong Protection)	IV	46.2
Sandy Point Sanctuary Zone	Ia	30.7
Eighteen Mile Sanctuary Zone	Ia	29.8
Cape Peron Special Purpose Zone (Wildlife Viewing and Protection)	IV	15.7
Big Lagoon Sanctuary Zone	Ia	13.4
Mary Anne Island Sanctuary Zone	Ia	3.10
Boorabuggatta Special Purpose Zone (Habitat Protection)	IV	2.98
Gudrun Wreck Sanctuary Zone	Ia	2.70
Surf Point Sanctuary Zone	Ia	1.92
Dubaut Inlet Recreation Zone	II	1.84
Monkey Mia Recreation Zone	II	1.47
Little Lagoon Recreation Zone	II	1.15

Habitats and blue carbon

Global Mangrove Watch maps 1,793 ha of mangroves inside the park in 2020.Global Mangrove Watch v3 · CC BY
The modelled kelp forest biome covers none of the park.Jayathilake & Costello 2020 · CC BY 4.0
Sanderman et al. (2018) map 597,058 tonnes of carbon in the top metre of mangrove soil inside the park, 279 tonnes per hectare on average.Sanderman et al. 2018 · CC0 1.0
Maxwell et al. (2024) map 219,615 tonnes of carbon in the top metre of tidal marsh soil inside the park, 190 tonnes per hectare on average.Maxwell et al. 2024 · CC BY 4.0

Pressures

Of the years 1985 to 2025, 2011 brought the most coral heat stress: averaged over the park, the year's highest Degree Heating Weeks reached 28.5 °C-weeks. NOAA counts 4 °C-weeks as bleaching likely and 8 as severe bleaching and mortality likely.NOAA Coral Reef Watch · Public domain
The 2013 cumulative human impact score (Halpern et al. 2015) averages 1.98 across the park, from 0.00 to 3.49.Halpern et al. 2015 · CC0 1.0

Data and research

215 of the 1,475 world map layers on Biohotspot with an open licence have data inside the park.
91 documents in the Biohotspot research library match the search “Shark Bay”.

Sources and licences

NOAA Coral Reef Watch, daily global 5 km satellite Degree Heating Week (v3.1), annual maxima 1985–2025 · NOAA Coral Reef Watch
Licence: Public domain (US Government work)
NOAA Coral Reef Watch. 2018, updated daily. NOAA Coral Reef Watch Version 3.1 Daily 5km Satellite Regional Virtual Station Time Series Data. College Park, Maryland, USA.
Cumulative human impacts: pressure and cumulative impacts data (2013, all pressures) · Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB)
Licence: CC0 1.0
Halpern, B., Frazier, M., Potapenko, J., Casey, K., Koenig, K., Longo, C., Lowndes, J., Rockwood, C., Selig, E., Selkoe, K., Walbridge, S. (2015) Cumulative human impacts: pressure and cumulative impacts data (2013, all pressures). KNB. doi:10.5063/F15718ZN. Associated paper: Halpern et al. 2015, 'Spatial and temporal changes in cumulative human impacts on the world's ocean' (no formal citation string given in the metadata).
Modelled Global Distribution of the Kelp Biome · UNEP-WCMC Ocean Data Viewer (hosting); University of Auckland / Nord University authors
Licence: CC BY 4.0
Jayathilake D.R.M., Costello M.J. 2020. A modelled global distribution of the kelp biome. Biological Conservation 252, 108815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108815 (v2: Jayathilake & Costello 2021, Biological Conservation, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109099)
Global Mangrove Watch (GMW) · UNEP-WCMC / Zenodo
Licence: CC BY (UNEP WESR catalogue entry); not stated on the UNEP-WCMC resources page or the Zenodo v3 page
Bunting, P.; Rosenqvist, A.; Hilarides, L.; Lucas, R.M.; Thomas, T.; Tadono, T.; Worthington, T.A.; Spalding, M.; Murray, N.J.; Rebelo, L-M. Global Mangrove Extent Change 1996 - 2020: Global Mangrove Watch Version 3.0. Remote Sensing. 2022.
Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) 2024 – Marine · Australian Government, DCCEEW
Licence: CC BY 4.0
Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (2025). Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) 2024 – Marine.
Global soil organic carbon in tidal marshes, version 2 (0–30 and 30–100 cm) · Maxwell, Spalding, Friess et al.
Licence: CC BY 4.0
Maxwell T.L. et al. (2024) Soil carbon in the world's tidal marshes. Nat. Commun. 15, 10265. doi:10.1038/s41467-024-54572-9
Global mangrove soil carbon, 0–100 cm (100 m mosaic) · Woods Hole Research Center / The Nature Conservancy
Licence: CC0 1.0
Sanderman J. et al. (2018) A global map of mangrove forest soil carbon at 30 m spatial resolution. Environ. Res. Lett. 13 055002. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aabe1c

A park here is the CAPAD 2024 Marine zones that share a name and a state. Habitat areas are the habitat maps’ polygons inside the park; carbon, heat stress and human impact are the map cells that touch it. Only sources with an open licence are used. Computed on 2026-10-27.