Following the shipwreck in 1629, a group of soldiers under the command of Wiebbe Hayes were put ashore there to search for water.

The Wiebbe Hayes Stone Fort, remnants of improvised defensive walls and stone shelters built by Wiebbe Hayes and his men on West Wallabi Island, are Australia's oldest known European structures,[1][2]: 37 [3] more than 150 years before expeditions to the Australian continent by James Cook and Arthur Phillip.

This platform, which rises abruptly from a flat shelf, is about 40 metres (130 ft) thick, and is of Quaternary origin.

Both the dunes and the pavement limestone support species-rich vegetation complexes dominated by chenopod shrubs, and these communities have been identified as important for species conservation, because they are diverse, yet easily disturbed and slow to recover.

[10] The island is part of the Houtman Abrolhos Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because it supports large numbers of breeding seabirds.