Canal aux Cygnes Noirs dans L’Isle Rottenest.

The Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh On December 29, 1696, he landed on Rottnest Island. He saw numerous quokkas there, (a native marsupial ), and thinking they were large rats, he named the island &quotrats’ nest&quot (Rottenest in Dutch) because of them. On January 10, 1697, he ventured up the Swan River. He and his crew are believed to have been the first Europeans to do so. He named the Swan River (Zwaanenrivier in Dutch) after the large numbers of Black Swans that he observed there. Vlamingh made the first European record of sighting a Black Swan in 1697 when he sailed into, and named, the Swan River on the western coast of New Holland. The sighting was significant in Europe where &quotall swans are white&quot had long been used as a standard example of a well-known truth.