- Campbell Island, New Zealand
Campbell Island ("Motu Ihupuku") is a remote,
sub-Antarctic island ofNew Zealand and the main island of theCampbell Island group . Campbell Island proper is located at coord|52|32.4|S|169|8.7|E|. It covers 115 km² and is surrounded by numerous stacks, rocks andislets like Dent Island, Folly Island (or Folly Islands) andJacquemart Island , the latter being the southernmost extremity of New Zealand. The Island is mountainous, rising to over 500 metres in the south. A longfjord ,Perseverance Harbour , nearly bisects it, exiting to the sea on the east coast.Campbell Island is inscribed in the [http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/877/multiple=1&unique_number=1029 UNESCO World Heritage list] together with the other sub-Antarctic New Zealand islands in the region as follows: 877-005 Campbell Island S52.33 E169.09 11331 Ha 1998
Weather
Campbell Island's weather can be summarised as cool, cloudy, wet and windy. The island receives only 650 hours of bright sunshine annually and it can expect less than an hours sunshine on 215 days (59%) of the year. The peaks of the island are frequently obscured by cloud. It has an annual rainfall of 1450 mm, with rain, mainly light showers or drizzle, falling on an average of 325 days a year. It is a windy place, with gusts of over 50 knots (96 kph) occurring on at least 100 days each year. Variations in daily and annual temperatures are small with a mean annual temperature of 6° C, rarely rising above 12°C. [ [http://www.biodiversity.govt.nz/news/media/archive/02oct00.html Biodiversity: Campbell Island Rat eradication information sheet] ]
History
Campbell Island was discovered in
1810 by CaptainFrederick Hasselburgh of the sealingbrig "Perseverance", which was owned by the Sydney-based company Campbell & Co. (whence the island's name). It became a seal hunting base, and the seal population was almost totally eradicated.On the 4th of November 1810 the island's discoverer Captain Hasselburg (or "Hasselburgh", there are several spellings), who had returned from Sydney, was drowned in Perseverance Harbour, together with Elizabeth Farr, a young woman born at
Norfolk Island , and a twelve or thirteen year old Sydney boy George Allwright. Farr was probably what would now be called a "ship girl" but the presence of a European woman at this distant place in those remote times gave rise to the legend of "The Lady of the Heather" the title of a romantic novel developing the incident into a story about a daughter ofBonnie Prince Charlie stranded on the island byWilliam Stewart namesake ofStewart Island in New Zealand. The accident happened whenWilliam Tucker was present, on the "Aurora", another unusual character in the sealing era who became the source of a legend and a novel. [Peter Entwisle, Taka: a Vignette Life of William Tucker 1784-1817, Dunedin: Port Daniel Press, 2005, ISBN; 0-473-10098-3, pp.73-75.] The remoteness and striking appearance of the sealing grounds, whether on mainland New Zealand or the sub-Antarctic islands, and the sealing era's early place in Australasia's European history, supply the elements for romance and legend which are generally absent in the area's colonial history.The first sealing boom was over by the mid teens of the 19th century. The second was a brief revival in the 1820s. The whaling boom extended here in the 1830s and 40s. In 1874 the island was visited by a French scientific expedition intending to view the
Transit of Venus . Much of the island's topography is named after aspects of, or people connected with, the expedition. In the late 19th century the island became a pastoral lease. Sheep farming was undertaken from 1896 until the lease, along with the sheep and a small herd of cattle, was abandoned in 1931 as a casualty of theGreat Depression . [Ian S. Kerr, Campbell Island, a History, Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed,1976.]During
World War II a coast guard station was operative at Tucker Cove at the north shore of Perseverance Harbour. After the war the facilities were used as a meteorological station until 1958, when a new one was established at Beeman Cove, just a few hundred metres further east. This station was manned permanently until1995 when a fully automatic station was established. Today, human presence is limited to periodic visits by research and conservation expeditions.Nature conservation
In 1954 the island was gazetted as a
nature reserve . Theferal Campbell Island Cattle were eliminated by about 1984. The feralCampbell Island Sheep were culled during the 1970s and 1980s, with their eventual extermination in 1992. In2001 Brown Rat s (Norway rats) were eradicated from the island nearly 200 years after their introduction. This was the world's largest rat eradication. The island's rat-free status was confirmed in2003 . [http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDocument.aspx?DocumentID=16920] Since the eradication, vegetation and invertebrates have been recovering, seabirds have been returning and theCampbell Island Teal , the world's rarest duck, has been reintroduced. [http://www.doc.govt.nz/Whats-New/presult.asp?prID=2279] Other native landbirds include theNew Zealand Pipit and theCampbell Island Snipe , a race or species of the New Zealand snipes only discovered in 1997 and as yet undescribed. The snipe had survived on Jacquemart Island and began recolonising the islands after the rats had been removed.The area is one of five sub-Antarctic island groups designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. [ [http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/877/multiple=1&unique_number=1029 New Zealand Sub-Antarctic Islands - UNESCO World Heritage Centre ] ]
References
Gallery
Images of Campbell Island
See also
*
Campbell Island Teal
*Megaherbs
*Campbell Island group
*New Zealand sub-antarctic islands
*List of antarctic and sub-antarctic islands
* Rat Island, where rats are also being eradicatedExternal links
* [http://ortho.linz.govt.nz/nz_offshore_islands/campbell_high_res.jpgTopographic map] , Campbell Island, NZMS 272/3, Edition 1, 1986.
* [http://www.qsl.net/zl9ci/zl9info.html Long description of Campbell Island and especially its history]
* [http://www.70south.com/resources/islands/campbell Short description of Campbell Island with a picture]
* [http://www.terranature.org/DentIsland_fromCampbell300.jpgPicture of a Southern royal albatross nesting with a chick on Campbell Island with Dent Island in the background]
* [http://www.aspen-ridge.net/Shipmates/John_Baxter/John_Baxter_Page_2/John_Baxter_Page_3/Baxter-Campbell-Island.jpgPicture of Perseverance Harbor, Campbell Island]
* [http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/biodiversity/antarctica/images/scene1.jpgPicture of Campbell Island]
* [http://www.oceanwanderers.com/CampbellIsland.jpgPicture of Campbell Island]
* [http://wingsbirds.com/galleries/gallery/108#i1947 Picture of Campbell Island]
* [http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/biodiversity/antarctica/images/scene3.jpgPicture of the vegetation on Campbell Island]
* [http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/biodiversity/antarctica/images/scene2.jpgPicture of the vegetation on Campbell Island]
* [http://www.aspen-ridge.net/Shipmates/John_Baxter/John_Baxter_Page_2/John_Baxter_Page_3/Baxter-TJ-Perserverance_Harbour-1.jpgPicture of Campbell Island]
* [http://www.aspen-ridge.net/Shipmates/John_Baxter/John_Baxter_Page_2/John_Baxter_Page_3/Baxter-TJ-Perserverance_Harbour.jpgPicture of Campbell Island]
* [http://www.qsl.net/zl9ci/zphoto1.html 2 Pictures of Campbell Island (very slow connection)]
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