The Solander Islands / Hautere are three uninhabited volcanic islets toward the western end of the Foveaux Strait just beyond New Zealand's

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

. The Māori name ''Hautere'' translates into English as "flying wind". The islands lie south of

Prices Point A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or Financial compensation, compensation given by one Party (law), party to another in return for Good (economics), goods or Service (economics), services. In some situations, the pr ...

, near where Lake Hakapoua drains through Big River to the ocean due west of Te Waewae Bay, and northwest of the Putatara (Rugged) Point in the northwest of Stewart Island / Rakiura, or from

Codfish Island / Whenua Hou Codfish Island / Whenua Hou is a small island () located to the west of Stewart Island in southern New Zealand. It reaches a height of close to the south coast. The island is home to Sirocco, an internationally famous kākāpō, a rare specie ...

. The islands measure . Administratively, the islands form part of Southland District, making them the only uninhabited outlying island group of New Zealand to be part of a local authority. The islands are the tip of a larger submerged volcano, roughly equivalent in size to Mount Taranaki. It was formerly believed that the volcano last erupted roughly 2 million years ago, but in 2010 radiometric dating of rock samples from the island found that it was between 150,000 and 400,000 years old.

Islands

Solander Island / Hautere (also known in Māori as ''Te Niho a Kewa''), the main island, covers around , rising steeply to a peak above sea level. It is wooded except for its northeast end, mainly a bare, white rock. A deep cave is on the east side, Sealers Cave. Little Solander Island is west. It reaches high yet covers . It has a barren appearance and is

guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. G ...

-covered. Pierced Rock is south of the main island. It rises to and covers (0.2 ha).

History

The island chain was sighted by Captain

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

on 11 March 1770 and named by him after the Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander, one of the scientific crew aboard Cook's ship, ''

Endeavour Endeavour or endeavor may refer to: People Fictional characters * Endeavour Morse, central character of the ''Inspector Morse'' novels by Colin Dexter * Endeavor, the hero name for the character Enji Todoroki from the anime series ''My Hero A ...

''. The islands are geographically forbidding and weather conditions often confound the approach of ships, dissuading attempts at permanent habitation. Australian sealers briefly made use of the islands during the early 19th century, likely living on small flats between the island's cliffs and its shoreline for stints of a few months. Castaways would occasionally end up on the islands, and in 1813, a passing ship bound for Stewart Island found five men in need of rescue. The men – four Europeans and one Australian aboriginal – were marooned there between 1808 and 1813, representing the longest continual period of habitation on the islands. They are thought to have been left ashore in two groups for seal hunting (sealing), but the sea prevented the approach of any ship to recover them. In 1810, sealing moved to Macquarie Island, farther to the west, and they were effectively abandoned. When rediscovered in 1813, it is likely that they had amassed many dried seal pelts.

Geology

The islands are remnants of an isolated extinct Pleistocene volcano with andesite rocks, 150 to 400 thousand years old. They lie on a bank with depths less than , separated from the

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island ...

along Foveaux Strait by a but narrow trough deep (at least ). Therefore, the islands are included in the New Zealand Outlying Islands. The islands are the only volcanic land in New Zealand related to the subduction of the Australian Plate beneath the

Pacific Plate The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At , it is the largest tectonic plate. The plate first came into existence 190 million years ago, at the triple junction between the Farallon, Phoenix, and Iza ...

along the Puysegur Trench, which extends southwards from the end of the Alpine Fault.

Flora and fauna

There are 53 vascular plant species, one third of which are very rare. The flora is dominated by ferns and orchids. The southern, and nominate,

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

of Buller's albatross (''Thalassarche b. bulleri'') breeds only on the Solanders and the Snares. The Solander Islands were historically a well-known area for migrating whales, especially southern right and

sperm whale The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the sperm whale famil ...

s. Sperm whales in this area were said to be exceptionally large.

Bird life

The islands are home to a variety of bird life. The Solander group 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 ...

because of its significance as a breeding site for

Buller's albatross Buller's albatross (''Thalassarche bulleri'') or Buller's mollymawk, is a small mollymawk in the albatross family. It breeds on islands around New Zealand, and feeds in the seas off Australia and the South Pacific. Taxonomy Mollymawks are a ty ...

es (with about 5000 pairs) and common diving petrels.BirdLife International. (2012). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Solander Islands. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 27 January 2012.

References

External links

Geology

Botany

Fauna (Albatrosses)

Nautical information

photo
{{Authority control Islands of Southland, New Zealand New Zealand outlying islands Volcanoes of the New Zealand outlying islands Pleistocene volcanoes Extinct volcanoes Important Bird Areas of New Zealand Volcanic islands of New Zealand Uninhabited islands of New Zealand Foveaux Strait Islands of the New Zealand outlying islands