Qualla: Jones Island https://qualla.com/jones-island-south-australia en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/p/e/jones-island-south-australia-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Jones Island https://qualla.com/jones-island-south-australia Jones Island: Introduction https://qualla.com/jones-island-south-australia/ Photo credit Su.fraser, CC BY-SA 4.0. Most wildlife stories on this coast are about decline. Jones Island is the rare exception. In the calm, shallow water off its sheltered shore, an Australian sea lion colony is not just surviving but expanding, with 32 pups born in a single recent season and pup counts rising for more than a decade. For an endangered animal whose numbers fall almost everywhere else, that makes this unremarkable-looking lump of rock at the mouth of Baird Bay one of the most quietly hopeful places on the Eyre Peninsula.

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Image: Su.fraser | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/p/e/jones-island-south-australia-wp/qfpe-jones-island-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Jones Island: The Last of a Drowned Wall https://qualla.com/jones-island-south-australia/ Photo credit Su.fraser, CC BY-SA 4.0. Jones Island is small, about 600 metres long and no more than 400 metres wide, sitting at the northern end of Anxious Bay where Baird Bay opens to the ocean. Its southeastern face is sharp cliff, exposed to the full weight of the Southern Ocean swell; its northwestern side is a s...

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Image: Su.fraser | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/p/e/jones-island-south-australia-wp/qfpe-jones-island-the-last-of-a-drowned-wall.mp3 0:06 2 full Jones Island: A Colony Against the Odds https://qualla.com/jones-island-south-australia/ Photo credit Su.fraser, CC BY-SA 4.0. Australian sea lions are among the rarest sea lions on the planet, and their populations have been falling for years, hit by bycatch, disease, and a famously slow breeding cycle. Against that backdrop, Jones Island is an outlier worth celebrating. It is one of the few colonies in...

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Image: Su.fraser | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/p/e/jones-island-south-australia-wp/qfpe-jones-island-a-colony-against-the-odds.mp3 0:06 3 full Jones Island: Look, Don't Land https://qualla.com/jones-island-south-australia/ Photo credit Su.fraser, CC BY-SA 4.0. The island itself is closed to people, off-limits for the sake of the animals that breed there, and that boundary is the whole point. Sea lions are curious and trusting, qualities that have not always served them well around humans. But just offshore, in the protected shallows of...

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Image: Su.fraser | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/p/e/jones-island-south-australia-wp/qfpe-jones-island-look-dont-land.mp3 0:06 4 full Jones Island: A Name From the Paperwork https://qualla.com/jones-island-south-australia/ Photo credit Su.fraser, CC BY-SA 4.0. The island's human history is briefer than its natural one. It was named in 1908 after James W. Jones, secretary to the Commissioner of Public Works, an official whose name attached itself to a rock he very likely never set foot on. Protection came in stages. The island gained pr...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/p/e/jones-island-south-australia-wp/qfpe-jones-island-a-name-from-the-paperwork.mp3 0:06 5 full Jones Island: A Garden of Salt and Stone https://qualla.com/jones-island-south-australia/ Photo credit Su.fraser, CC BY-SA 4.0. For all that the sea lions dominate the story, the island has its own quiet botany. A 1983 survey found vegetation in five groupings, hardy coastal plants built for salt, wind, and thin soil: coast daisy-bush, nitre-bush, Austral stork's bill, round-leaved pigface, and a patch of...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/p/e/jones-island-south-australia-wp/qfpe-jones-island-a-garden-of-salt-and-stone.mp3 0:06 6 full