Dassen Island
| Dassen Island | ||
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| Waters | Atlantic | |
| Geographical location | 33 ° 25 '27 " S , 18 ° 5' 16" E | |
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| length | 3.1 km | |
| width | 1 km | |
| surface | 2.73 km² | |
| Highest elevation | 13 m | |
| Residents | uninhabited | |
Dassen Island ( Afrikaans : Dasseneiland ) is a South African island in the Atlantic . It is located about nine kilometers from the coastal town of Yzerfontein and 55 kilometers north of Cape Town .
geography
Dassen Island is 3.1 kilometers northwest-southeast and 1.0 kilometers southwest-northeast; the area is around 273 hectares. This makes it the second largest island in the coastal area of mainland South Africa after Robben Island to the south .
The island consists of fine-grain, tourmaline-containing and, to a lesser extent, biotite-containing granite , which is partially covered by sand. The island is flat; the 28-meter-high lighthouse stands on the highest, around 13-meter-high elevation near the southern tip. Round-cut boulders can be found on the coast. Except in the east, the island is surrounded by reefs . To the north is the Bay House Bay, in the East Waterloo Bay.
The cold Benguela Current in the South Atlantic ensures moderate temperatures.
Dassen Island is inhabited by a lighthouse keeper and some rangers , whose houses are in the north near the landing stage. A path leads across the island to the lighthouse. Parts of the island are surrounded by a low concrete wall.
history
The island was called Ilha Branca ("White Island") by Portuguese sailors . The Dutchman Joris van Spilbergen baptized in 1601 that island, after dassie, for hyrax . At that time the island had large colonies of these animals. Plants grew up to two meters high. The island was also known as Coney Island .
A thick layer of guano was mined in the 1840s. Penguin eggs were collected on the island from 1870 to the 1960s, with a maximum of 600,000 in 1919. It was only when the population declined sharply that collection was prohibited. The island and the surrounding marine area were finally designated as the Dassen Island Reserve in 1987 .
In the past, shipwrecks were common. In 1994 the ore freighter Apollo Sea stranded nearby and caused an oil spill that killed thousands of African penguins on Dassen Island . In 2000, many penguins died again after the ore freighter Treasure was damaged between Robben Island and Dassen Island.
Flora and fauna
The island is only sparsely overgrown, including succulents . Numerous plants bloom in winter. Dassen Island is mostly inhabited by seabirds, including the African penguin ( Spheniscus demersus ), of which there are around 16,000 individuals and 2,700 breeding pairs, and significant occurrences of the Great White Pelican - with 550 breeding pairs in 1996 -, black oystercatcher - with around 280 individuals eight Percent of the total, four species of cormorant , Dominican gull , hard- leaved gull and common tern . There are also neozoa such as rabbits, mice and cats. At migration time, numerous other waders populate the island.
In 1930 Cherry Kearton made a documentary about the Dassen Island penguins called Dassan: An Adventure in Search of Laughter Featuring Nature's Greatest Little Comedians . In the same year he published a book about it called Island of Penguins (German as: The island of five million penguins ).
traffic
The island is occasionally approached in excursion traffic; access to the island is limited for nature conservation reasons.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Description at yzerfonteintourism.co.za (English), accessed on August 19, 2015
- ↑ Aylva Ernest Schoch: The Darling Granite Batholith. Stellenbosch University , Stellenbosch 1972. Abstract , accessed on August 21, 2015
- ↑ a b Information at sailafrica.steerage.co.za ( Memento from May 19, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- ↑ a b c d Birds on Dassen Island at birdlife.org.za ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ^ John Purdy: Memoir, Descriptive and Explanatory, to Accompany the New Chart of the Ethiopic Or Southern Atlantic Ocean, with the Western Coasts of South-America, from Cape Horn to Panama. RH Laurie, 1822. Excerpts from books.google.de , accessed on August 21, 2015
