Hunter Marine Park extends from shallow shelf waters out to the deep ocean. It includes shelf rocky reefs and a series of canyons that cut through the continental slope, funneling nutrients and sediments that enhance the productivity and diversity of the surrounding waters. Associated plankton blooms are thought to support over 50 fish species endemic to the area. Tuna, albatross and whales forage here, and humpback whales and grey nurse sharks also use the area as a feeding ground.

Fishing is a significant activity in the region, and includes commercial fishing, recreational fishing, charters and game fishing tournaments.

The park adjoins the New South Wales Port Stephens-Great Lakes Marine Park, and extends from the New South Wales state water boundary out to about 100 kilometres offshore. It covers 6,257 square kilometres, and is a Habitat Protection and Special Purpose (Trawl) zone. – Parks Australia

Hunter ranges from 39 to 5,029 metres depth, with an average depth of 2,602 metres. The majority of the Park (32%) falls within the lower-slope zone (2,000-4,000 metres). [View on map] The mapped areas of the seafloor are dominated by Plane (58%) and Slope (27%) geomorphology. [View on map]

Based on annotations from publicly available seafloor imagery (Squidle+), the five most dominant seafloor categories in this Park are:

• Mesophotic: sand (53%), mixed invertebrate community (25%), macroalgae (19%), sponges (2%), coral biota (1%)
• Rariphotic: sand (79%), unidentified (16%), mixed invertebrate community (2%), mixed coarse sediments (1%), consolidated hard substrata (1%)
• Upper-slope to Abyss: no public imagery available