BROUGHTON Island has been a fishing paradise for as long as records have been kept.

Firstly, the Worimi people, followed by local Europeans and the Chinese in the mid-to-late 1800’s, then the Italians from 1893.

Greeks set up small fishing communities at the turn of the century.

Frenchmen spent time on the island in 1906, introducing rabbits, in a failed attempt to discover a virus that would free the mainland of the ongoing rabbit plague.

The Frenchmen left the island but the rabbits stayed and continued to grow in healthy numbers grazing on the native vegetation.

Rats invaded the island and became a major concern around the shacks and also to nesting birds, particularly the fairy penguins and the shearwaters.

In 2009 National Parks and Wildlife took up the challenge with a baiting program to rid the island of the feral animals.
All reports and my regular visits to the island continue to indicate that the program has been a great success, which I’m sure would be greatly appreciated by the native flora and fauna.

Bird life has returned in numbers to the degree where NPWS has the confidence to introduce nesting boxes for the endangered Gould’s petrel.

The plant life has exploded with the only obvious problem being the infestation of prickly pear.

Referred to as Long Island by the commercial fishers, Broughton still has much to offer the fishers, boaties, day trippers, bird watchers, historians, geologists and other scientists.

Take a visit, it is well worth it.

By John ‘Stinker’ CLARKE