Stapleton Island

Stapleton Island is a small island on the northern Great Barrier Reef of Far North Queensland, Australia. It lies about 40 km off Cape Melville on the east coast of the Cape York Peninsula. It is important as a nesting site for boobies and terns.

Description

The island is an elongated cay, about long with a maximum width of. It is constituted of coral sand and reef rubble rising to a central ridge above sea level. The outer edge has a beach community of herbs and the sand ridge is dominated by low shrubs and Lepturus grass. The island is a designated Preservation Area within the Howick Group National Park with no general public access.

The island has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area because it has supported over 1% of the world populations of brown boobies and lesser crested terns. There have also been counts of up to 10,000 breeding pairs of both bridled and sooty terns, as well as breeding records of black-naped, crested and little terns, common noddies and Australian pelicans.