With an abundance of food, East Gippsland Marine Park is an important foraging habitat for many oceanic seabirds such as cape petrels and wandering albatrosses.

The East Australian Current funnels warm waters from the north in dizzyingly complex ways, fuelling the marine food web.

These currents interact with the complex seafloor, a mix of:

• continental shelf
• plunging escarpments
• deep canyons.

Huge eddies form off Cape Howe, swirling the warm waters together with cool nutrient-rich waters, allowing marine life to flourish.

The marine park is south-east of the New South Wales-Victoria border at Cape Howe. It covers 4137 square kilometres with depths from 600 metres to over 4000 metres.

It is a Multiple Use Zone.

Explore

The marine park is far offshore, but there are plenty of marine activities to enjoy at Eden and Mallacoota.

Don’t miss the annual Eden Whale Festival, or head out boating or fishing on Mallacoota Inlet.

Discover

Mapping the seafloor helps us better understand what kinds of habitats and marine life to expect.

On a recent voyage to East Gippsland, Marine Park scientists mapped the seafloor in detail while their colleagues sampled the marine life found there.

This work was part of the National Environmental Science Program, supported by the Department of the Environment and Energy.