Known as Wirruwana to its traditional custodians, the Malgana people, Dirk Hartog Island stretches 80 km along the Gascoyne coast, covering 620 square kilometers of scrub-covered sand dunes within the Shark Bay World Heritage Area. Hartog's pewter plate survived 81 years of wind and salt before Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh found it in 1697, its post nearly rotted away. De Vlamingh replaced it with his own plate -- copying Hartog's inscription and adding the details of his own voyage -- and sent the original home to Amsterdam, where it sits in the Rijksmuseum today. In 1772, French navigator Louis Aleno de Saint-Alouarn buried bottles containing an annexation document and a coin, claiming the land for Louis XV. One bottle was unearthed in 1998, its lead cap still intact, though the annexation document was never found.

De Vlamingh's replacement plate had its own eventful journey. In 1801, Emmanuel Hamelin's expedition found it half-buried in sand and re-erected it. Seventeen years later, Louis de Freycinet -- who had served under Hamelin -- sent men ashore to take the plate to France. It arrived in Paris, was presented to the Academie Francaise, and then vanished. For over a century it sat unrecognized on the bottom shelf of a small room, mixed in with old copper engraving plates. It was rediscovered in 1940 and, in recognition of Australian sacrifices in the defense of France during two world wars, returned to Australia in 1947. Today it is displayed at the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle. The northern tip where all this inscription happened is aptly named Cape Inscription, and its lighthouse still marks the spot.

By the late 19th century, the island's history had shifted from maritime exploration to pastoralism. Francis Louis von Bibra took a lease in 1869, grazing sheep and trading guano. The Withnell brothers acquired the property in 1907 and built it into a substantial operation -- by 1919 the island carried approximately 19,000 sheep across 153,000 acres. Perth Lord Mayor Sir Thomas Wardle purchased the island as a private retreat around 1969, eventually retiring there as a semi-recluse. The island later returned to government ownership and became Dirk Hartog Island National Park, part of the Shark Bay Marine Park. A small area remains leased to Wardle's grandson, Kieran, who operates it as an eco-tourism resort.

The ecological cost of 150 years of sheep, goats, and feral cats was severe. In 2018, after a six-year eradication campaign, the island was declared free of all introduced animals. The 'Return to 1616' project then began reintroducing native species confirmed to have once lived here. Rufous hare-wallabies and banded hare-wallabies came first in 2017. Western barred bandicoots and dibblers followed in 2019, with proof of dibbler reproduction confirmed by June 2021. Shark Bay mice, greater stick-nest rats, and western thick-billed grasswrens arrived between 2021 and 2022. By November 2022, all six reintroduced mammal species were breeding. Brush-tailed bettongs were released in April 2025, though unusually hot and dry conditions caused high initial mortality before surviving animals began to breed. The island also hosts loggerhead and green turtle nesting beaches and an endemic subspecies of the white-winged fairy-wren. The goal is a population of 3,000 native mammals -- an ark built on sand dunes.