Flinders Island

Flinders Island was first inhabited at least 35,000 years ago, when people made their way from Australia across the then land-bridge which is now Bass Strait. A population remained until about 4,500 years ago, succumbing to thirst and hunger following an acute El Niño climate shift.[3]

Some of the south-eastern islands of the Furneaux Group were first recorded in 1773 by British navigator Tobias Furneaux, commander of HMS Adventure, the support vessel with James Cook on Cook's second voyage. In February 1798, British navigator Matthew Flinders charted some of the southern islands, using one of the schooner Francis' open boats. Later that year, Flinders returned and finished charting the islands in the Norfolk; he then went on to complete the first circumnavigation of Tasmania (1798–99), accompanied by George Bass, proving Tasmania to be an island separated from the Australian mainland by Bass Strait, later named in honor of George Bass.

James Cook named the islands Furneaux's Islands, after Tobias Furneaux. Flinders named the largest island in the group "Great Island". He also named a group of mountains on Flinders Island, the "Three Patriarchs". The small island just to the east, Flinders named "Babel Island" from the noises made by the seabirds there. Phillip Parker King later named the largest island Flinders Island, after Matthew Flinders.[4][5][6] Flinders named Mount Chappell Island after his wife Ann née Ann Chappelle. There are three islands named "Flinders' Island"—the large island on the east side of Bass Strait, named by Phillip Parker King; an island in the Investigator Group of South Australia, named by Matthew Flinders after his young brother Samuel Flinders (midshipman on the Investigator); and an island in the Flinders Group north of Cooktown, Queensland was named after Matthew Flinders.

In the late 18th century, the island was often frequented by sealers and Aboriginal women, the majority of whom had been kidnapped from their mainland tribes. Seal stocks soon collapsed, causing the last sealing permit to be issued in 1828. Many sealers' families chose to stay in the Furneaux Group, subsisting on cattle grazing and muttonbirding.

From 1830, the remnants of the Tasmanian Aboriginal population were exiled to Settlement Point (or Wybalenna, meaning "Black Man's House" in the language of the Ben Lomond people) on Flinders Island. These 160 survivors were deemed to be safe from white settlers here, but conditions were poor, and the relocation scheme was short-lived. In 1847, after a campaign by the Aboriginal population against their Commandant, Henry Jeanneret, which involved a petition to Queen Victoria, the remaining 47 Aboriginal people were again relocated, this time to Oyster Cove Station, an ex-convict settlement 56 kilometres south of Tasmania's capital, Hobart.[7] Land on the neighbouring Cape Barren Island was formally reserved for the Aboriginal community in 1881.[8]

From the late 19th century freehold land was given out, but it was not until the 1950s that a proper settlement scheme was initiated, mainly drawing settlers from mainland Tasmania and central New South Wales to Flinders Island's eastern shore. The Municipality of Flinders Island was instituted in 1903.[9]

Flinders Island has a mild oceanic climate (Cfb) that is strongly moderated by the Bass Strait. The summers are drier and less cloudy than the winters, and annual average rainfall totals less than 800 mm (31 in).

Flinders Island is an important site for the forty-spotted pardalote

A 30 km² tract of land on the island, lying mainly to the north and east of Whitemark, has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) because it contains three breeding colonies of the endangered forty-spotted pardalote and habitat used by flame robins. It also supports populations of several of Tasmania's restricted-range endemic bird species, including the green rosella, yellow-throated honeyeater, black-headed honeyeater, strong-billed honeyeater, Tasmanian thornbill, black currawong and dusky robin.[17]

A 187 km² strip of land extending the full 70 km length of Flinders Island's eastern coastline has also been identified as an IBA. it supports small numbers of fairy terns, large numbers of hooded plovers and over 1% of the world populations of chestnut teal, pied oystercatchers and sooty oystercatchers.[18]