{"id":258433,"date":"2025-03-13T16:31:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T16:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/13\/iceberg-was-a-wildlife-concern-but-south-georgia-is-a-conservation-success-story\/"},"modified":"2025-03-13T16:31:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T16:31:16","slug":"iceberg-was-a-wildlife-concern-but-south-georgia-is-a-conservation-success-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/13\/iceberg-was-a-wildlife-concern-but-south-georgia-is-a-conservation-success-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Iceberg was a wildlife concern – but South Georgia is a conservation success story"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Iceberg<\/div>


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Technically, the hundred-mile-long, 20 mile-wide British overseas territory of South Georgia is uninhabited.<\/p>\n

Only a few visiting scientists and government fisheries inspectors occupy the island all year round.<\/p>\n

But from a wildlife perspective, it’s anything but.<\/p>\n

Its shores are home to the largest number of marine birds and mammals on the planet.<\/p>\n

Lying 800 miles east off the Falkland Islands<\/a><\/strong> and a thousand miles north of Antarctica<\/a><\/strong>, it’s one of the few fragments of land between that vast frozen continent and the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

The part of the South Atlantic in which it sits is one of the most food-rich oceans in the world, fed by powerful circulating currents, and it’s full of shrimp-like Antarctic krill.<\/p>\n

“Krill feeds the blue whales, humpback whales, fin whales. It also feeds the gentoo penguins, macaroni penguins, chinstrap penguins and the fur seals,” says Martin Collins, a scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, and former head of the South Georgia government, speaking to me from his office at King Edward Point on the island.<\/p>\n

The island also has some of the largest and most significant populations of elephant seals, king penguins and several species of albatross and petrel – the hardiest of ocean-going seabirds.<\/p>\n

The island has been in the headlines after the world’s largest iceberg, A23a, ran aground<\/a><\/strong> off its south-west coast.<\/p>\n

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Concern over impact of iceberg on island’s wildlife<\/strong><\/p>\n

There’s a concern it could impact wildlife on the island – but the timing is fortuitous, says Mr Collins.<\/p>\n

“It’s the end of the breeding season now, which means the impacts on penguins at that part of the island will be lessened.<\/p>\n

“There may be a little bit of impact, particularly on gentoo penguins, which still forage around the island during the winter.”<\/p>\n

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\n Gentoo penguins are part of the island’s rich wildlife
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From a wider conservation point of view, South Georgia is one of the world’s stand-out success stories.<\/p>\n

Until the 1960s, it was a major hub for whaling. Thousands of whales were caught off its coasts and processed at a number of whaling stations – the scale of the slaughter such that the bays around the island were red with whale blood.<\/p>\n

The whalers introduced reindeer for food that nibbled and trampled unique plant life that sustained many of the island’s endemic wildlife.<\/p>\n

Stowaway rats plundered the eggs and chicks of penguins and other ground nesting birds (there are no trees).<\/p>\n

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Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player<\/p>\n


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World’s largest iceberg on collision course with South Georgia<\/span>
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Whales returning in large numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n

The South Georgia pipit, the world’s most southerly songbird, was driven to the brink of extinction.<\/p>\n

But before the abandoned whaling stations have even rusted away, whales have begun returning to South Georgia in large numbers.<\/p>\n

A campaign of air-dropping poisoned bait across the inaccessible island has eradicated the rats and the pipits are booming.<\/p>\n

The seas around South Georgia were once heavily fished. The worst for wildlife were long-line vessels trying to hook high-value Chilean seabass.<\/p>\n

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Call for outright ban on fishing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Albatross and petrels would dive for the bait and be caught and drowned.<\/p>\n

Since 2012, the government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands have policed a 500,000 square-mile marine-protected area around the islands where most fishing is now banned.<\/p>\n

A few vessels are licensed to catch shrimp-like krill and seabass but only in winter when most predators are absent and under strict controls.<\/p>\n

Some conservationists are calling for fishing to be banned outright.<\/p>\n

However, the South Georgia government argues it’s the income from limited fishing licences that allows them to protect and monitor the exclusion zone.<\/p>\n

Crucial at a time when funding from central government is scarce and unlikely to increase.<\/p>\n

The key threat now is the rapidly changing climate around South Georgia.<\/p>\n

“There’s evidence that the distribution of krill is moving a little further south gradually over time,” says Mr Collins.<\/p>\n

“We need to be really mindful of that changing climate.”<\/p>\n

But he’s optimistic too. Despite warmer oceans, numbers of some species are booming. Especially whales and fur seals.<\/p>\n

“I’ve just had two king penguins walking past the windows as we were talking,” he says.<\/p>\n

“When I first came here in the late 1990s, there were no fur seals in this area at all. And now they’re everywhere around us”.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Technically, the hundred-mile-long, 20 mile-wide British overseas territory of South Georgia is uninhabited. Only a few visiting scientists and government fisheries inspectors occupy the island all year round. But from a wildlife perspective, it’s anything but. Its shores are home to the largest number of marine birds and mammals on the planet. Lying 800 miles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/03\/768x432\/skynews-south-georgia-penguin_6854204.jpg?20250312144228","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[2851,42320,1873,153912,6967,3889,4239,6377],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258435,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258433\/revisions\/258435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}