Île de l'Est, or East Island, is a part of the subantarctic archipelago of the

Crozet Islands The Crozet Islands (; 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 Antarctic Lands. History ...

. With an area of it is the second largest island of the group. It is part of the

French Southern and Antarctic Lands The French Southern and Antarctic Lands (, TAAF) is an overseas territory ( or ) of France. It consists of: * Adélie Land (), the French claim on the continent of Antarctica. * Crozet Islands (), a group in the southern Indian Ocean, south ...

Description

The island is the easternmost of the archipelago, lying about east of

Île de la Possession Île de la Possession, or Possession Island, formerly Île de la Prise de Possession, is part of the Subantarctic Crozet Archipelago. Administratively, it is part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands. It is an important nesting site fo ...

(Possession Island). The landscape is mainly bare rock; it is the most mountainous in the archipelago, with a high point of , and a rugged coastline of high cliffs. It is dissected by several steep-sided valleys of glacial origin. The only introduced animals are

rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

s. There is no human infrastructure; it is only occasionally visited by researchers.

Important Bird Area

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 i ...

as a breeding site for

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

s. Key species include

king King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

, gentoo,

macaroni Macaroni (), known in Italian as ''maccheroni'', is a pasta shaped like narrow tubes.Oxford DictionaryMacaroni/ref> Made with durum wheat, macaroni is commonly cut in short lengths; curved macaroni may be referred to as "elbow macaroni". Some ...

and

northern rockhopper penguin The northern rockhopper penguin, Moseley's rockhopper penguin, or Moseley's penguin (''Eudyptes moseleyi'') is a penguin species native to the southern Indian Ocean, Indian and Atlantic Oceans. It is described as distinct from the southern rockho ...

s, wandering, grey-headed, light-mantled,

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 '' The Sooty ...

and

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, both northern and

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 pe ...

s, medium-billed and fairy prions, great-winged, soft-plumaged, white-chinned,

grey Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. It is the color of a cloud-covered s ...

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...

and

Kerguelen petrel The Kerguelen petrel (''Aphrodroma brevirostris'') is a small (36 cm long) slate-grey seabird in the family Procellariidae. It is the only species placed in the genus ''Aphrodroma''. It is a pelagic, circumpolar seabird of the Southern Ocea ...

s, Wilson's, grey-backed and black-bellied storm petrels,

common Common may refer to: As an Irish surname, it is anglicised from Irish Gaelic surname Ó Comáin. Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Com ...

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 ...

s, Crozet blue-eyed shags, brown skuas 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. Eaton's pintails are present. The island is also the site of the largest breeding population of

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 its ...

s in the archipelago.BirdLife International. (2012). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Île de l'Est. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 2012-01-09.

References

External links

* Important Bird Areas of the Crozet Islands Volcanoes of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands Est Seabird colonies Penguin colonies {{FrenchSouthernTerritories-geo-stub

Description

Important Bird Area

See also

References

External links