Antipodes Islands
 The Antipodes Islands seen from the north |
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 Position relative to New Zealand and other outlying islands |
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| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | 860 kilometres (534 mi) southeast of Stewart Island/Rakiura |
| Coordinates | 49°40′0.12″S 178°46′0″E / 49.6667°S 178.766667°E |
| Archipelago | Antipodes Islands |
| Major islands | Antipodes Island, Bollons Island |
| Area | 22 km2 (8.5 sq mi) |
| Highest elevation | 366 m (1,201 ft) |
| Highest point | Mount Galloway |
| Country | |
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New Zealand
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| Demographics | |
| Population | 0[1] (as of 2006) |
| Additional information | |
| Nature reserve | |
The Antipodes Islands (from Greek αντίποδες - antipodes[2]) are inhospitable volcanic islands to the south of—and territorially part of—New Zealand. They lie 860 kilometres (534 mi) to the southeast of Stewart Island/Rakiura.
The island group consists of one main island, Antipodes Island, of 20 km2 (7.7 sq mi) area, Bollons Island of 2 km2 (0.77 sq mi) to the north, and numerous small islets and stacks, including Windward, Leeward and Archway Islands. The highest point is Mount Galloway (366 m/1,201 ft), which also forms part of the group's most recently active volcano.[3]
Ecologically, the islands are part of the Antipodes Subantarctic Islands tundra ecoregion. The islands are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, together with other sub-Antarctic New Zealand islands. The island group is a nature reserve and there is no general public access.
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[edit] Etymology
The island group was originally called the "Penantipodes" meaning "next to the antipodes", because it lies near to the antipodes of London. Over time the name has been shortened to "Antipodes" leaving some to suppose its European discoverers had not realised its global location.[4] This misapprehension persists. In fact, the island's antipodes are situated on the territory of the French village Gatteville-le-Phare, near Cherbourg.[5]
[edit] History
[edit] Prehistory
In 1886, a shard of early Polynesian pottery was discovered roughly 0.75 metres (2 ft 6 in) below the surface on the main island, indicating visitation prior to European discovery of the islands. The pottery fragment, apparently a piece of a bowl, is now housed in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington.
[edit] Sealing
The island group was first charted in 1800 by Captain Henry Waterhouse of the British ship HMS Reliance. In 1803 Waterhouse's brother-in-law George Bass applied to Governor Philip Gidley King of New South Wales for a fishing monopoly from a line bisecting southern New Zealand from Dusky Sound to the Otago Harbour to cover all the lands and seas to the south, including the Antipodes Islands, probably because he knew the latter were home to large populations of fur seals. Bass sailed from Sydney to the south that year and was never heard of again but his information led to a sealing boom at the islands in 1805 to 1807.
At one time eighty men were present; there was a battle between American and British-led gangs and a single cargo of more than 80,000 skins - one of the greatest ever shipped from Australasia - was on-sold in Canton for one pound sterling a skin, a multi-million dollar return in modern terms. Prominent Sydney merchants such as Simeon Lord, Henry Kable and James Underwood were engaged in the trade as well as the Americans Daniel Whitney and Owen Folger Smith. William W. Stewart, who claimed to have charted Stewart Island, and probably William Tucker who started the retail trade in preserved Maori heads, were present during the boom. After 1807, sealing was occasional and cargoes small, no doubt because the animals had been all but exterminated.
[edit] Shipwrecks
A much later attempt to establish cattle on the islands was short-lived (as were the cattle). When the ship Spirit of the Dawn (with a crew of 16) foundered off the main island's coast in 1893, the eleven surviving crew spent nearly three months living as castaways on the island, living on raw muttonbirds, mussels and roots for 87 days before gaining the attention of the government steamer Hinemoa by a flag made from their sail.
A well-supplied castaway depot[6] was available on the other end of the island, but the survivors' weak condition and the island's mountainous terrain prevented them from searching for depots. The depot was found and used by the crew of the President Felix Faure wrecked in Anchorage bay in 1908. The last wreck at the Antipodes was the yacht Totorore with the loss of two lives, Gerry Clark and Roger Sale, in June 1999.
[edit] Flora and fauna
The flora of the islands has been recorded in detail, and includes megaherbs. The islands are also home to numerous bird species including the endemic Antipodes Snipe and Antipodes Island Parakeet, as well as several albatrosses, petrels and penguins, including half of the world population of Erect-crested Penguins.
[edit] Important Bird Area
The Antipodes group has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because of its significance as a breeding site for several species of seabirds. The seabirds are Southern Rockhopper and Erect-crested Penguins, Antipodean, Black-browed, Light-mantled and White-capped Albatrosses, and Northern Giant, Grey and White-chinned Petrels.[7]
[edit] See also
- Composite Antarctic Gazetteer
- List of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands
- List of sub-Antarctic islands
- List of islands of New Zealand
- New Zealand sub-antarctic islands
- SCAR
- Territorial claims in Antarctica
- Water hemisphere
[edit] References
- ^ Final counts – census night and census usually resident populations, and occupied dwellings - Area outside territorial authority, 2006 Census, Statistics New Zealand. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
- ^ Antipodes, Liddell and Scott, "A Greek-English Lexicon", at Perseus.
- ^ "Antipodes Island". Global Volcanism Program, Smithsonian Institution. http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1305-01-.
- ^ "Antipodes Islands: New Zealand's subantarctic islands". New Zealand Department of Conservation. http://www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/land-and-freshwater/offshore-islands/new-zealands-subantarctic-islands/antipodes-islands/. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
- ^ "Antipodes Islands". Twelve Mile Circle. http://www.howderfamily.com/blog/. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
- ^ Items from the 1880s depot recovered in 1947 and now in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
- ^ BirdLife International. (2012). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Antipodes Islands. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 2012-01-27.
[edit] Further reading
- Wise's New Zealand Guide (4th ed.) (1969). Dunedin: H. Wise & Co. (N.Z.) Ltd.
- "NGA-IWI-O-AOTEA". No. 59 (June 1967). Te Ao Hou - The Maori Magazine, pp. 43.
- Godley, E.J. The Botany of Antipodes Island. New Zealand Journal of Botany, 1989, Vol. 27: 531-563
- Entwisle, Peter (2005). Taka, A Vignette Life of William Tucker 1784–1817. Dunedin: Port Daniel Press. ISBN 0-473-10098-3.
- Taylor, Rowley, (2006) Straight Through from London, the Antipodes and Bounty Islands, New Zealand. Christchurch: Heritage Expeditions New Zealand Ltd. ISBN 0-473-10650-7.
- Marris, J.W.M. 2000: The beetle (Coleoptera) fauna of the Antipodes Islands, with comments on the impact of mice; and an annotated checklist of the insect and arachnid fauna. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 30: 169-195. ISSN: 0303-6758 doi:10.1080/03014223.2000.9517616 PDF
- Warham, J.; Johns, P.M. 1975: The University of Canterbury Antipodes Island Expedition 1969. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 5(2): 103-131. ISSN: 0303-6758 Google books
