Crozet Islands

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Crozet Islands
Map of the archipelago
bodies of water Indian Ocean
Geographical location 46° 21′  S , 51° 41′  E Coordinates: 46° 21′  S , 51° 41′  E
number of islands 5 (+numerous rocks)
main island Ile de la Possession
Total land area 352 km²
resident 15 (station staff
winter)
The research vessel Marion Dufresne departs the Île de la Possession , with the Île de l'Est in the background
w1

The Crozet Islands ( French Îles Crozet ) are a group of volcanic islands in the southern Indian Ocean between 46° and 47° south latitude and 50° and 52° east longitude. They cover a land area of ​​352 km² and are part of the French Southern and Antarctic Territories .

The archipelago is inhabited only by the changing crew of 15 to 60 from the scientific Alfred Faure Station .

In 2019, the archipelago was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the French Southern Lands and Seas .

Associated Islands

Island coordinates Area
km² 		Height  (summit)
m
Eastern group
Ile de la Possession 46° 24′  S , 51° 46′  E 150 934  (Pic du Mascarin)
Ile de l'Est 46° 26′  S , 52° 13′  E 130 1050  ( Mont Marion-Dufresne )
western group
Ile aux Cochons 46° 6′  S , 50° 14′  E 67 853  (Mont Richard-Foy)
Île des Penguins 46° 25′  S , 50° 24′  E 3 340  (Month of Manchot)
Ilots des Apôtres 45° 57′  S , 50° 26′  E 2 292  (Mont-Pierre)

story

The islands were discovered on January 24, 1772 by Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne , who named them after his first officer , Jules Crozet . At the time, Du Fresne was on an expedition that would take him to Tasmania and New Zealand .

The islands lie in the so-called Roaring Forties , a westerly wind drift in the southern hemisphere, which enables fast sailing from Africa to Australia or South America . As a result, cruising routes near the Crozet Islands were very popular, especially in the 19th century. However, the strong winds also made for extremely unsettled weather and with the limited navigational techniques of the time, it was difficult to navigate safely around the Crozet Islands.

The islands offer little vegetation, so the only source of sustenance is by catching the animals that live on the islands. Because of the low chances of survival and the risk of shipwreck on the islands, the Royal Navy sent ships to the islands every two to three years to look for signs of wrecked ships and their crews.

Despite their barren landscape, the islands' nature was exploited from the beginning of the 19th century. The rich wildlife was a gold mine for whalers , sealers and fishermen. At first the seals were hunted, which humans did not know and therefore were not afraid of them. This made it easy to kill them, which ultimately led to almost complete extinction by 1835. After that, this business became unprofitable. The whalers also found rich stocks of different whale species. A side effect of this was the reduction in penguin populations, because the whalers did not want to burn the valuable blubber and took penguins instead. The fishing also had devastating effects on the birds living on the islands, which snatched up the fishing bait and then got stuck.

In 1924 the islands came under the administration of the French colony of Madagascar .

They have been a nature reserve since 1938, which has somewhat curbed the overexploitation of nature. However, illegal fishing still occurs as black toothfish fetches high market prices. Fishing control is also very difficult in the Crozet Islands region.

In 1955, the territory of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands (TAAF) was formed, to which the Crozet Islands were annexed as a district.

In 1964 the first scientific station was built in Port Alfred , as the place was called. However, the term "port" is not quite appropriate, since it is not a real port, and all transport must take place by boat or helicopter. The town also has a post office and a church called Sainte-Marie du Vent (“Saint Mary of the Wind”).

Since the islands have been continuously inhabited ever since, France was also allowed to set up an exclusive economic zone around them. This happened in 1978 when a 200 mile zone was created. Since then, France has officially had one of the largest bodies of water in the world.

shipwrecked

The British sealer Princess of Wales sank there in 1821 and the survivors spent two years on the islands. Equally dramatic is the fate of the crew of the French sealer Aventure , which sank in the cliffs off the Île de l'Est (then called Île Chabrol ) in 1825 after having deposited nine sealers on the Île aux Cochons. The initially seven shipwrecked spent seventeen months on the island under the most adverse circumstances, a large part of this time divided into two completely at odds groups. On January 6, 1827, the six survivors on the Île de l'Est were rescued by a whaler, who shortly afterwards also took in the nine sealers from the Île aux Cochons.

In July 1875 the English ship Strathmore was wrecked off the Crozet Islands. 40 people lost their lives, 49 were able to save themselves on the Îlots des Apôtres. They fed on penguins , albatrosses and the grasses that grew there. Five more people died, however, until six months later when the whaling ship Young Phoenix came to the rescue.

The crew of the French Tamaris , which was shipwrecked on the night of March 8th, 1887, was less fortunate . The 13-man crew saved themselves on the Île aux Cochons and built a makeshift shelter. On August 4, she managed to tag a giant petrel that was found on September 18 in the Australian city of Fremantle . Because of the long lines of communication, the French ship La Meurthe only reached the islands on December 2nd. In the meantime, however, the situation for the shipwrecked had become so difficult that, according to the captain's diary found at the time, they had attempted to sail to the nearest larger island, apparently dying in the process.

nature

climate

Due to their location in the Roaring Forties, the islands' climate is characterized by the strong winds that blow around 100 days a year with a wind force of 10 and more, and is therefore extremely unstable. Temperatures range from 3°C in winter to 8°C in summer. Temperatures can rise to 18°C ​​in summer, but rarely drop below -5°C in winter. It rains around 300 days a year. The annual rainfall is 2000 mm.

This climate also makes landings on the islands extremely difficult. Even today, with the islands being serviced twice a year by the helicopter -equipped ship Marion Dufresne II , the landing occasionally fails. In the past, many expeditions had to give up the plan to land. In 1874 alone, two landing attempts failed, including that of the USS Swatara to land astronomers to observe a transit of Venus . Even the German Erich von Drygalski with his ship Gauss , which stopped at the islands in 1901, could not stay long because it was not possible to anchor safely. Bill Tilman , who led various expeditions, including one to the Crozet Islands, wrote in 1960 after studying historical expedition reports: "One would almost like to think that shipwreck is the only way to get to Crozet."

Flora and fauna

The vegetation is - as is typical for a sub-Antarctic island - rather sparse. It mainly consists of grasses , lichens , mosses and shrubs . This vegetation is sometimes referred to as tundra because of its appearance , although the milder climate and the lack of permafrost differ significantly from the typical tundra climate. The classification of the vegetation is therefore inconsistent in the literature. Common to the Crozet Islands is the kerguelen cabbage, which is endemic to the islands of the southern Indian Ocean .

King penguins ( Aptenodytes patagonicus ) in the Crozet Islands

The animal world, on the other hand, is very rich. Various seal species such as Antarctic fur seal , leopard seal and elephant seal are found. The seabirds are represented by penguins , giant petrels and albatrosses . The waters around the islands are home to blue whale , sperm whale , minke whale and orca , as well as marbled bass , toothpick and icefish .

All of these animal species have been victims, directly or indirectly, of human exploitation of nature in the past. The seal species in particular were almost exterminated.

Four species of penguins live on the Crozet Islands. Most numerous are the golden- crested penguin , about 2 million pairs of which breed on the islands, and the king penguin , home to 700,000 breeding pairs, half the world's population. The eastern rockhopper penguin is also represented. There is also a small colony of Gentoo penguins .

In 2018, it was found that the 500,000-pair king penguin colony on the Ile aux Cochons has shrunk by almost 90 percent over the past three decades to 60,000 breeding pairs.

web links

Commons : Crozet Islands  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

itemizations

  1. ↑ French Austral Lands and Seas. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, accessed 8 July 2019 (English).
  2. ↑ Souveraineté française sur les îles Crozet. In: Les Îles Crozet: voyage au pays des manchots et des albatross. Retrieved November 14, 2016 (French).
  3. ↑ Richard Andree : The seal beaters on the Crozet Islands (1825) . Told from: Lesquin de Roscoff aux Îles Crozet . In: Real and truthful Robinsonades, trips and travel experiences from all zones (= Otto Spamer [ed.]: Otto Spamer's youth and home library . Second series. Eleventh volume). Otto Spamer, Leipzig 1868, p. 134–150 ( digital copy ).
  4. ↑ Le naufrage du Strathmore (1875). In: Les Îles Crozet: voyage au pays des manchots et des albatross. Retrieved November 14, 2016 (French).
  5. ↑ Le naufrage du Tamaris (1887). In: Les Îles Crozet: voyage au pays des manchots et des albatross. Retrieved November 14, 2016 (French).
  6. ↑ Researchers sound the alarm: where have all the penguins gone? In: tagesschau.de. 31 July 2018, retrieved 1 August 2018 .
  7. ↑ Henri Weimerskirch et al.: Massive decline of the world's largest king penguin colony at Ile aux Cochons, Crozet . In: Antarctic Science . tape 30 , no. 4 , August 2018, p. 236–242 , doi : 10.1017/S0954102018000226 (English).