Steeple Jason Island is a small island west of
Grand Jason Island. It is a part of the
Jason Islands
The Jason Islands (Spanish: ''Islas Sebaldes'') are an archipelago in the Falkland Islands, lying to the far north-west of West Falkland. Three of the islands, Steeple Jason, Grand Jason and Clarke's Islet, are private nature reserves owned by ...
in the
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...
. Along with Grand Jason, it is one of the "Islas los Salvajes" in Spanish (the Jasons being divided into two groups in that language).
Population and geography
None of the Jason Islands has ever been properly inhabited. Steeple Jason was used for sheep grazing up until the 1980s. There are the remains of a shearing shed on the island. There is also Steinhart Station, a field research station on the island, built in 2003 for monitoring wildlife.
The island is surrounded by low-lying land around the shore which quickly rises to a steep peak, hence the island's name.
The island was formerly owned by
New York philanthropist
Michael Steinhardt
Michael H. Steinhardt (born December 7, 1940) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager, philanthropist, and former antiquities collector. In 1967, he founded a hedge fund, Steinhardt Partners which he ran until he closed it in 1995. After a ...
, who later donated it to the
Bronx Zoo
The Bronx Zoo (also historically the Bronx Zoological Park and the Bronx Zoological Gardens) is a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York. It is one of the largest zoos in the United States by area and is the largest metropolitan zoo in ...
-based
Wildlife Conservation Society
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a non-governmental organization headquartered at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, that aims to conserve the world's largest wild places in 14 priority regions. Founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological ...
.
Wildlife
Steeple Jason is home to the largest colony of
black-browed albatross
The black-browed albatross (''Thalassarche melanophris''), also known as the black-browed mollymawk,Robertson, C. J. R. (2003) is a large seabird of the albatross family Diomedeidae; it is the most widespread and common member of its family.
T ...
es in the world. Over 70% of the global population of black-browed albatross breed in the Falkland Islands.
Other birdlife includes
southern rockhopper penguin
The southern rockhopper penguin group (''Eudyptes chrysocome''), is a species of rockhopper penguin, that is sometimes considered distinct from the northern rockhopper penguin. It occurs in subantarctic waters of the western Pacific and Indian ...
s,
Magellanic penguin
The Magellanic penguin (''Spheniscus magellanicus'') is a South American penguin, breeding in coastal Patagonia, including Argentina, Chile, and the Falkland Islands, with some migrating to Brazil and Uruguay, where they are occasionally seen a ...
s,
gentoo penguin
The gentoo penguin ( ) (''Pygoscelis papua'') is a penguin species (or possibly a species complex) in the genus ''Pygoscelis'', most closely related to the Adélie penguin (''P. adeliae'') and the chinstrap penguin (''P. antarcticus''). The ea ...
s,
slender-billed prion
The slender-billed prion (''Pachyptila belcheri'') or thin-billed prion, is a species of petrel, a seabird in the family Procellariidae. It is found in the southern oceans.
Taxonomy
The slender-billed prion was species description, formally ...
s,
striated caracara
The striated caracara (''Phalcoboenus australis'') is a bird of prey of the family Falconidae. In the Falkland Islands, it is known as the Johnny rook, probably named after the Johnny penguin ( gentoo penguin).
Description
The adults' plumage is ...
s and
tussac-birds. The Magellanic penguin is near the southern part of its range here, but the more cold-tolerant gentoo also occurs substantially south into
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...
. The sole mammalian life is marine, e.g. sea lions and
fur seal
Fur seals are any of nine species of pinnipeds belonging to the subfamily Arctocephalinae in the family '' Otariidae''. They are much more closely related to sea lions than true seals, and share with them external ears (pinnae), relatively l ...
s.
Large beds of
kelp
Kelps are large brown algae seaweeds that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. Despite its appearance, kelp is not a plant - it is a heterokont, a completely unrelated group of organisms.
Kelp grows in "underwa ...
surround the island, and the land is covered in grasses common to the other Falkland Islands, such as
tussac grass
''Poa flabellata'', commonly known as tussac grass or just tussac, is a tussock grass native to southern South America, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and other islands in the South Atlantic. There are also two isolated records from the her ...
.
Birds and other wildlife on Steeple Jason Island are in many cases under threat, chiefly due to
overfishing in the South Atlantic Ocean over the last century.
[Wildlife Conservation Society. 2008]
References
* John Fowler. 1999
''Steeple Jason Island, Falkland Islands''* ''
The Blue Planet
''The Blue Planet'' is a British nature documentary series created and produced by the BBC. It premiered on 12 September 2001 in the United Kingdom. It is narrated by David Attenborough.
Described as "the first ever comprehensive series on t ...
'',
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, 2001.
* C. Michael Hogan. 2008
* Alex Kirby. 2002
* Wildlife Conservation Society. 2008