Ile de l'Est in the background - panoramio

IMRAY(1893) p124 SHIP BAY, POSSESSION ISLAND

Île de la Possession, or Possession Island, formerly Île de la Prise de Possession, is part of the

Subantarctic The sub-Antarctic zone is a region in the Southern Hemisphere, located immediately north of the Antarctic region. This translates roughly to a latitude of between 46° and 60° south of the Equator. The subantarctic region includes many islands ...

Crozet Archipelago The Crozet Islands (french: Îles Crozet; or, officially, ''Archipel Crozet'') are a sub-Antarctic archipelago of small islands in the southern Indian Ocean. They form one of the five administrative districts of the French Southern and Antarcti ...

. Administratively, it is part of the

French Southern and Antarctic Lands The French Southern and Antarctic Lands (french: Terres australes et antarctiques françaises, TAAF) is an Overseas Territory (french: Territoire d'outre-mer or ) of France. It consists of: # Adélie Land (), the French claim on the continent ...

. It is an important nesting site for

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

Description

Île de la Possession lies in the eastern group of the archipelago, about 20 km west of Île de l'Est (East Island). With an area of it is the largest island of the group and the only inhabited one. It has a rugged landscape of mountains cut by deep glaciated valleys. The coastal areas and valleys are covered with

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of t ...

subantarctic vegetation. The island is uninhabited except for the staff of the

Alfred Faure Alfred-Faure or Port Alfred is a permanent French scientific station on Île de la Possession (Possession Island) of the subantarctic Crozet Archipelago in the South Indian Ocean. Research Station It is located at the eastern end of the island on ...

research station at the eastern end of the island, with a maximum of about 20 people.

Alfred Faure research station

Alfred Faure research station is a research Station made out of about 12 Main buildings. The Station has about 20 Personnel active at max. It is located on the far eastern point of Île de la Possession. The

temperature Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer. Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied o ...

reaches an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

of 5.3

°C The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The ...

(41.5 °F). The name of the Base comes from Alfred Faure, the leader of the site in the

1960s File:1960s montage.png, Clockwise from top left: U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War; the Beatles led the British Invasion of the U.S. music market; a half-a-million people participate in the 1969 Woodstock Festival; Neil Armstrong and Buzz ...

. The base has a 1.6 KM long

Road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of ...

that connects the base to the sea trough which, a vessel named ''Marion Dufresne'' comes very few times a week to bring supplies. An

aerial cableway An aerial tramway, sky tram, cable car, ropeway, aerial tram, telepherique, or seilbahn is a type of aerial lift which uses one or two stationary ropes for support while a third moving rope provides propulsion. With this form of lift, the grip ...

also runs up from the coast to the station.

History

In 1840 the

Ross expedition The Ross expedition was a voyage of scientific exploration of the Antarctic in 1839 to 1843, led by James Clark Ross, with two unusually strong warships, HMS ''Erebus'' and HMS ''Terror''. It explored what is now called the Ross Sea and discov ...

anchored near the island to bring provisions to a stranded group of eleven elephant-seal hunters.

Wildlife

Birds

The island has been identified as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

as a breeding site for seabirds, of which there are at least 26 breeding species. Birds nesting in relatively large numbers include

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

, northern rockhopper and

macaroni penguin The macaroni penguin (''Eudyptes chrysolophus'') is a species of penguin found from the Subantarctic to the Antarctic Peninsula. One of six species of crested penguin, it is very closely related to the royal penguin, and some authorities conside ...

s, wandering,

sooty Sooty is a British children's television media franchise created by Harry Corbett incorporating primarily television and stage shows. The franchise originated with his fictional glove puppet character introduced to television in 1955, with the ...

and

light-mantled albatross The light-mantled albatross (''Phoebetria palpebrata'') also known as the grey-mantled albatross or the light-mantled sooty albatross, is a small albatross in the genus ''Phoebetria'', which it shares with the sooty albatross. The light-mantled a ...

es,

northern giant petrel The northern giant petrel (''Macronectes halli''), also known as Hall's giant petrel, is a large predatory seabird of the southern oceans. Its distribution overlaps broadly, but is slightly north of, the similar southern giant petrel (''Macronec ...

s, medium-billed prions,

Kerguelen The Kerguelen Islands ( or ; in French commonly ' but officially ', ), also known as the Desolation Islands (' in French), are a archipelago, group of islands in the subantarctic, sub-Antarctic constituting one of the two exposed parts of the ...

and

soft-plumaged petrel The soft-plumaged petrel (''Pterodroma mollis'') is a species of seabird in the family Procellariidae. Distribution It breeds on islands in the Southern Hemisphere, nesting on Tristan da Cunha, Gough Island, the Prince Edward Islands, Crozet ...

s, and

South Georgia diving petrel The South Georgia diving petrel or Georgian diving-petrel (''Pelecanoides georgicus'') is one of five very similar small auk-like diving petrels of the southern oceans. It is native to the South Atlantic and islands of the southern Indian Ocean a ...

s. Other island breeders in smaller numbers are

southern giant petrel The southern giant petrel (''Macronectes giganteus''), also known as the Antarctic giant petrel, giant fulmar, stinker, and stinkpot, is a large seabird of the southern oceans. Its distribution overlaps broadly with the similar northern giant pet ...

grey-headed albatross The grey-headed albatross (''Thalassarche chrysostoma'') also known as the gray-headed mollymawk, is a large seabird from the albatross family. It has a circumpolar distribution, nesting on isolated islands in the Southern Ocean and feeding at hi ...

es and

Kerguelen tern The Kerguelen tern (''Sterna virgata'') is a tern of the southern hemisphere. This seabird mainly breeds colonially in the Kerguelen Islands, as its common name implies. However, smaller colonies are also found in the Prince Edward Islands (i. ...

s. Crozet blue-eyed shags,

black-faced sheathbill The black-faced sheathbill (''Chionis minor''), also known as the lesser sheathbill or paddy bird, is one of only two species of sheathbills, aberrant shorebirds which are terrestrial scavengers of subantarctic islands. Description They are du ...

s and

Eaton's pintail Eaton's pintail (''Anas eatoni'') is a dabbling duck of the genus ''Anas''. It is also known as the southern pintail. The species is restricted to the island groups of Kerguelen and Crozet in the southern Indian Ocean. It resembles a small fema ...

s are resident. The smaller birds nest only at higher altitudes because of their vulnerability to rat predation at lower levels.

Other wildlife

The

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...

s that were introduced have been eradicated, though

black rat The black rat (''Rattus rattus''), also known as the roof rat, ship rat, or house rat, is a common long-tailed rodent of the stereotypical rat genus ''Rattus'', in the subfamily Murinae. It likely originated in the Indian subcontinent, but is n ...

s remain and are a threat to the birdlife. Both

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and other ...

and

subantarctic fur seal The subantarctic fur seal (''Arctocephalus tropicalis'') is found in the southern parts of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans. It was first described by Gray in 1872 from a specimen recovered in northern Australia—hence the inappropri ...

s, as well as

southern elephant seal The southern elephant seal (''Mirounga leonina'') is one of two species of elephant seals. It is the largest member of the clade Pinnipedia and the order Carnivora, as well as the largest extant marine mammal that is not a cetacean. It gets it ...

s, breed on the island. A pod of about 80

killer whale The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white pa ...

s inhabits the surrounding waters. Two plants and 59

arthropod Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

species endemic to the archipelago are present.BirdLife International. (2012). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Île de la Possession. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 2012-01-10.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Possession, Ile de la Important Bird Areas of the Crozet Islands Volcanoes of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands

Possession Possession may refer to: Law * Dependent territory, an area of land over which another country exercises sovereignty, but which does not have the full right of participation in that country's governance * Drug possession, a crime * Ownership * ...

Seabird colonies Penguin colonies