Adelaide International Bird Sanctuary National Park - Winaityinaityi Pangkara

Open 24 hours a day, sev­en days a week.

Clo­sures and safety

This park is closed on days of Cat­a­stroph­ic Fire Dan­ger and may also be closed on days of Extreme Fire Danger.

You can deter­mine the cur­rent fire dan­ger rat­ing by check­ing the Fire Ban Dis­trict map on the CFS website.

Check the CFS web­site or call the CFS Bush­fire Infor­ma­tion Hot­line 1800 362 361 for:

• Infor­ma­tion on fire bans and cur­rent fire conditions
• Cur­rent CFS warn­ings and incidents
• Infor­ma­tion on what to do in the event of a fire.

Lis­ten to your local area radio sta­tion for the lat­est updates and infor­ma­tion on fire safety.

Vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion, book­ings and park management:

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice, Yorke and Mid North Office
Phone: (+61 8) 8841 3400

Emer­gency contacts:

Med­ical, fire (includ­ing bush­fire) and police emer­gency sit­u­a­tions
Phone: Triple Zero — 000

Police Assis­tance
Phone: 131 444 for non-urgent police assistance

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice SA – After-hours duty offi­cer (voice mes­sages only, text mes­sages are unavail­able to be received)
Phone: 0417 883 678

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice, Yorke and Mid North Office on (08) 8841 3400 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0417 883 678 (out­side of busi­ness hours)

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

Marine mam­mals
If you find a sick or strand­ed marine mam­mal (includ­ing whales, seals, sea lions and dol­phins), please con­tact Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice, Yorke and Mid North Office on (08) 8841 3400 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0427 556 676 (out­side of busi­ness hours)

The south­ern gate­way of the Sanc­tu­ary, locat­ed at the St Kil­da fore­shore, is only a 30 min dri­ve from Ade­laide. The north­ern gate­way, at Thomp­son Beach is sit­u­at­ed on some of Adelaide’s pris­tine coast­line fea­tur­ing sam­phire and inter­tidal mudflats.

Access to areas of the sanc­tu­ary out­side of the approved track net­work is not permitted.

Loca­tion of access roads, approved tracks and the clo­sures of trails is cur­rent­ly being decid­ed as part of an exten­sive com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­ta­tion process. Find out how you can be a part of the con­ver­sa­tion and view the draft man­age­ment plan.

In the mean­time depart­men­tal staff will be on site at var­i­ous times to advise the pub­lic on cur­rent use and future plans.

Assis­tance dogs are per­mit­ted in most pub­lic places and are there­fore wel­come in South Australia’s parks and reserves. Assis­tance dogs must be appro­pri­ate­ly restrained on a lead and remain under your effec­tive con­trol at all times while in a park or reserve.

As per the dogs in parks and reserves pol­i­cy, if the dog is not an accred­it­ed assis­tance dog, they must be trained to assist a per­son with a dis­abil­i­ty to alle­vi­ate that dis­abil­i­ty and meet stan­dards of hygiene and behav­iour appro­pri­ate for a dog in a pub­lic place. How­ev­er, refusal may be giv­en if the per­son with the dis­abil­i­ty is unable to pro­duce evi­dence the dog is an assis­tance dog with the appro­pri­ate training.

Before tak­ing your assis­tance dog into a park that does not nor­mal­ly allow dogs, it is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed that you con­tact us so we can pro­vide you with the lat­est infor­ma­tion on any poten­tial haz­ards with­in spe­cif­ic parks that may affect your dog. Please con­tact the park via the con­tact details pro­vid­ed under the con­tact tab or con­tact the vis­i­tor ser­vice cen­tre via email or on Face­book.

Dogs are wel­come in this park.

Please ensure you:

• Keep your dog under con­trol and on a lead no more than two metres in length.
• Stick to des­ig­nat­ed walk­ing trails.
• Bring dis­pos­able bags to clean up your dog’s fae­ces (please be aware there are no bins in nation­al parks).

Dis­cov­er oth­er parks you can walk your dog in on our find a park tool or read 12 dog-friend­ly walks in Ade­laide Parks by Good Liv­ing for inspiration.

• 4 fun things to do at Ade­laide’s bird sanctuary
• Ade­laide Inter­na­tion­al Bird Sanc­tu­ary Brochure
• Ade­laide Inter­na­tion­al Bird Sanc­tu­ary — Inter­im man­age­ment state­ment (2016)
• Salt fields — Cre­at­ing the Ade­laide Inter­na­tion­al Bird Sanc­tu­ary Brochure
• Upper Gulf St Vin­cent Marine Park
• Ade­laide Dol­phin Sanctuary
• Shore­birds project
• Mobile phone cov­er­age is good in most areas of the park.
• Impor­tant: Col­lec­tion of fire­wood with­in Nation­al Parks is prohibited.

The Kau­r­na Peo­ple have had a deep and spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion with land and waters of the bird sanc­tu­ary for thou­sands of years and are the recog­nised Tra­di­tion­al Own­ers of the Ade­laide Plains. Through their deep under­stand­ing of the land, strong com­mit­ment to rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and car­ing for their Coun­try, Kau­r­na Peo­ple are active­ly lead­ing in the estab­lish­ment of the Ade­laide Inter­na­tion­al Bird Sanctuary.

Kau­r­na knowl­edge is inte­gral to the plan­ning, estab­lish­ment and man­age­ment of the bird sanc­tu­ary. Their vision is to ​‘Bring Mean­ing­ful Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion of the Past – Present – Future’ through sup­port­ing the recog­ni­tion of the Kau­r­na iden­ti­ty to be strong, self-suf­fi­cient and a healthy sus­tain­able Kau­r­na Nation for the Kau­r­na Peo­ple. Their vision will sup­port Kau­r­na par­tic­i­pat­ing in the wider econ­o­my and social life of the Ade­laide Plains, while pro­tect­ing Kau­r­na heritage.

The land­scape of the Ade­laide Inter­na­tion­al Bird Sanc­tu­ary – its water, plants, ani­mals and spe­cial places – are a part of Kau­r­na cul­ture. Under­stand­ing this and work­ing togeth­er for shared access to Coun­try will help to strength­en respect for Kau­r­na cul­ture, and sup­port the Kau­r­na Peo­ple in their aspi­ra­tions for the future. Mean­ing­ful engage­ment with Kau­r­na Elders has unearthed numer­ous pos­si­bil­i­ties for the bird sanc­tu­ary and will con­tin­ue to under­pin its future success.

Winaity­i­naityi Pangkara means ​‘a coun­try for all birds and the coun­try that sur­rounds these birds’ in the lan­guage of the Kau­r­na people. 

The Ade­laide Inter­na­tion­al Bird Sanc­tu­ary area con­sist of diverse and rel­a­tive­ly pris­tine salt­marsh and wet­land habi­tat that is declin­ing else­where in the region and across the state due to urban encroach­ment, pol­lu­tion and agri­cul­tur­al devel­op­ment. Con­tin­ued pro­tec­tion of this habi­tat from devel­op­ment and degra­da­tion is critical.

Salt­marsh is not only an eco­log­i­cal­ly valu­able habi­tat but is also one of the high­est car­bon seques­tra­tion habi­tats known. In recog­ni­tion of its sig­nif­i­cance, coastal salt­marsh was list­ed as a threat­ened eco­log­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty under the EPBC Act in August 2013.

The bird sanc­tu­ary sup­port species of state and nation­al con­ser­va­tion sig­nif­i­cance, includ­ing the largest Aus­tralian pop­u­la­tion of bead glass­wort and the sam­phire thorn­bill, both list­ed as nation­al­ly threat­ened under the EPBC Act.

Two wet­lands of nation­al sig­nif­i­cance occur in the area – the Port Gawler and Buck­land Park Lake, and the Bark­er Inlet and St Kil­da wetland. 

Flo­ra and fau­na species lists

To down­load flo­ra (plants) and fau­na (ani­mals) species lists for this park, use the ​‘Cre­ate Sim­ple Species List’ tab under ​‘Flo­ra Tools’ or ​‘Fau­na Tools’ in NatureMaps.

The Ade­laide Inter­na­tion­al Bird Sanc­tu­ary Nation­al Park — Winaity­i­naityi Pangkara pro­vides schools and fam­i­lies with a vari­ety of learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. While we are work­ing on updat­ing our teach­ing and stu­dent resources for the park, below is a list of links to a vari­ety of oth­er inter­est­ing resources.

• Shore­bird iden­ti­fi­ca­tion guide
• Beach Explorer’s guide to the plants and ani­mals of South Aus­tralia
• Sam­phire iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of Greater Ade­laide and the Fleurieu Peninsula 
• East Asian — Aus­tralasian Flyway
• Nation­al Parks learn­ing resources for teach­ers and kids

The Ade­laide Inter­na­tion­al Bird Sanc­tu­ary Nation­al Park — Winaity­i­naityi Pangkara (pro­nounced Wee-nay-chi-nay-chi Pan-ker‑a ) is made up of 2457 hectares of land north-west of Ade­laide. The park is being cre­at­ed in stages, with the first stage now pro­claimed with future stages being pro­claimed over the com­ing year.

The draft man­age­ment plan pro­vides guid­ance around park man­age­ment until the full nation­al park is proclaimed.

• Ade­laide Inter­na­tion­al Bird Sanc­tu­ary Nation­al Park – Winaity­i­naityi Pangkara map

The Dry Creek salt fields were first con­struct­ed by ICI in the 1930s, and have been main­tained by an annu­al series of pump­ing activ­i­ties since. The land on which the salt fields were con­struct­ed his­tor­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed wet­lands, espe­cial­ly salt­marsh and mangroves.

The min­er­al leas­es over the Dry Creek salt fields cov­er around 10,000 hectares. Around 4,000 hectares were devel­oped as sali­na ponds (arti­fi­cial­ly con­trolled saline ponds used to pro­duce salt). The rest of the land is unde­vel­oped and remark­ably well pre­served due to lim­it­ed access to the site for the past 80 years.

The land under min­ing lease is either owned by the Crown, includ­ing the major­i­ty of coastal land sea­ward of the ponds, or is free­hold land owned by Rid­ley Cor­po­ra­tion. The major­i­ty of land owned by Rid­ley occurs on the land­ward side of the salt fields.