A push to industrialise the Exmouth region could threaten these species before science even finishes documenting them.

The Exmouth Gulf lies 1200 kilometres north of Perth. It is home to almost 2000 species, many of which are only found in WA and has World Heritage status.

Global engineering company Subsea 7’s plans to fabricate 10-kilometre pipelines in the area, then tugboat them through the Gulf and through Ningaloo Marine Park for use at offshore oil rigs in the region.

It says the Gulf is home to endangered sea cucumbers, diverse seahorses, critically endangered hawksbill turtles, dugongs and snubfin, humpback and bottlenose dolphins; and to baby giant shovelnose rays, leopard whiprays and manta rays.

The Gulf is the only known site worldwide where green sawfish, one of the planet’s most endangered species, give birth to their pups.

Unseen along its coast are ‘stygofauna’ found nowhere else but in WA, such as the blind cave eel and blind gudgeon fish, living deep underground in a complex terrain of limestone caves, rivers and lakes.

The Gulf’s has wetlands, mangroves and fossil and modern coral reefs, seagrass beds, reef and sand flats, soft coral and sponge beds; oyster beds, undisturbed islands and sandy beaches. Rising and falling sea levels isolate populations north and south of the gulf. Exmouth Gulf has around 800 species of fish, for example, compared to Ningaloo’s 550.

Exmouth has 831 species of snails and molluscs, 63 species of sharks and rays, 15 species of sea snakes. Short-nosed sea snakes, pictured here courting, were formerly thought extinct before being rediscovered at Ningaloo and subsequently found in Exmouth Gulf. 

Dr Fitzpatrick is concerned about the Gulf’s lack of “visibility” he obtained philanthropic funding for the preliminary baseline surveys presented in his Oceanwatch report. “Offshore oil and gas in the far north has been rapidly moving south – Port Hedland, Onslow, Karratha and the attempt at James Price Point,” he said.

“Western Australians are perhaps not all aware of the extent of offshore oil and gas rigs and how close they are to Ningaloo.

“If they continue to build their land infrastructure at the closest possible point to their rigs and wells, the entire coast is potentially opened up.

A campaign fronted by the author Tim Winton and backed by environmentalists and ecotourism operators is attempting to stop a pipeline factory for the oil and gas industry proposed for Exmouth Gulf.  They say the proposal by the engineering company Subsea 7 would lead to 10km steel pipe bundles containing gas and communication lines being transported through the gulf to offshore gas fields, putting at risk coral beds. It is admitted the launch and towing of the pipeline bundles through the Exmouth Gulf will cause up to 1464ha of seabed disturbance, when originally Subsea 7 claimed there would be none.

Project supporters say this is an unfair categorisation of a development that would have little environmental impact and that it would be a boon for Exmouth, a resort town that has not had the resources-based investment experienced further north in the Pilbara. Subsea 7 says at peak production it would add an estimated 120 full-time jobs to a town with a population of about 2,500.