Bird Island (Namibia)
| Bird Island (Namibia) | ||
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| Waters | South Atlantic | |
| Geographical location | 22 ° 52 '43 " S , 14 ° 32' 8.5" E | |
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| length | 200 m | |
| width | 100 m | |
| surface | 1.7 ha | |
| Highest elevation | 3 m | |
| Residents | uninhabited | |
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Bird Island , in German also mainly Guano Island , historically also derisively referred to as Winters Nonsense ( English Winter’s Folly ), is an artificial island in Walvis Bay in Namibia . It is located about seven kilometers north of the port city of Walvis Bay and was built exclusively for the production of guano .
The wooden island is not anchored in the ground, but is only loosely placed on the underlying rock, the Bird Rock .
history
The island was built on a shoal about 400 meters from the coast in the 1930s. The carpenter Adolf Winter from Swakopmund came up with the idea . He had always seen thousands of seabirds sitting on the rocks as they drove past at low tide . Since the guano was always washed off by the flood , Winter submitted an application to build a wooden platform at this point. In 1930 Winter leased the rock for a period of five years at a lease of £ 24 per year. Construction of the first platform began in 1930 at a height of three meters and an area of 16 square meters. Just two months later, it was expanded to 64 square meters, and a year later to 256 square meters. By August 1931 it had grown to 1,600 square meters. By the end of 1938, the island had been expanded to 17,000 square meters.
economics
The island's guano is considered to be of particularly high quality, especially since the nitrogen content is significantly higher than elsewhere and there is no mixing of the guano with sand. Bird Island guano consists of 16 percent nitrogen, 9 percent phosphoric acid and 4 percent potash salt . 99 percent of the guano comes from the Cape cormorant .
From 1934 the guano was brought ashore and sold for the first time. A pound of guano sold for £ 5 and 10 shillings, which by 1938 had risen by about 40 percent. By 1942 all debts for the construction of the island could be paid off.
The mining takes place once a year between February and March, with a guano thickness of around five centimeters. About 650 tons can be extracted in this way.
natural reserve
In contrast to other mining areas for guano, the extraction on the artificial island has no known disadvantage for the environment. In addition, Bird Island gives up to 200 breeding pairs of the Great White Pelican a safe breeding opportunity.
literature
- Hu Berry : The crowned race of Reed Cormorant Phalacrocorax africanus breeding underneath Walvis Bay guano platform, South West Africa. Madoqua Series I, 1974, Issue 8, pp. 59-62.
- Hue Berry: History of the guano platform on Bird Rock, Walvis Bay, South West Africa. Bokmakierie, 1975, Issue 27, pp. 60-65.
- RJM Crawford, J. Cooper, PA Shelton: The breeding population of White Pelicans Pelecanus onocrotalus at Bird Rock Platform in Walvis Bay, 1949-1978. Fisheries Bulletin of South Africa, 1981, Issue 15, pp. 67-70.
- GJ Fox; JJJ Wilken: The History of the Port and Settlement of Walvis Bay 1878–1978. Perskor, Johannesburg 1978, ISBN 0-628-01319-1 .
