Its CEO is charged with the responsibility of managing the wrecks lying offshore and in inland rivers and estuaries for both the State of Western Australia and the Commonwealth Government.
A chronological listing of all known wrecks on the Western Australian coast, for example, appears in the three volume 'Unfinished Voyages' Series produced by Graeme Henderson with the assistance of other authors.
[4] WA Museum volunteers and Honorary Associates, Peter and Jill Worsley, together with David Totty produced an analysis of wrecks on the mid-west coast.
This work produced by cultural heritage student Lesley Silvester assisted by Michael Murray appears in both hard copy and electronic form and it documents the many interactions between Indigenous people and shipwreck survivors.
They landed bereft of the trappings of power that are normally associated with those arriving for exploration, trading or commerce, rendering the interaction doubly of importance in analysing indigenous reactions to 'foreign' presence on their shores.
[8] To assist researchers in obtaining detailed information on many of the wrecks (other than that appearing in its books, articles and journal entries) the WA Museum has made all its unpublished departmental reports available in PDF form.
Others prominent on the basis of their being excavated and on the amount of research conducted into them include the Elizabeth Belinda, Stefano, and Eglinton, all early wooden-hulled merchant vessels; the Sepia and Europa, iron barques; the Day Dawn, a former American whale ship; and the wooden whalers Star, Lively, and Lady Lyttelton.