Emperor Island is a small island in

Marguerite Bay Marguerite Bay or Margaret Bay is an extensive bay on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula, which is bounded on the north by Adelaide Island and on the south by Wordie Ice Shelf, George VI Sound and Alexander Island. The mainland coast on t ...

, lying close north-east of the Courtier Islands in the

Dion Islands The Dion Islands are a group of small islands and rocks lying in the northern part of Marguerite Bay, south-west of Cape Alexandra, Adelaide Island, off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. They were discovered by the French Antarctic Exp ...

. The islands in this group were discovered and roughly charted in 1909 by the

French Antarctic Expedition The French Antarctic Expedition is any of several French expeditions in Antarctica. First expedition In 1772, Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec and the naturalist Jean Guillaume Bruguière sailed to the Antarctic region in search of the fabl ...

. This island was surveyed in 1948 by the

Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is the United Kingdom's national polar research institute. It has a dual purpose, to conduct polar science, enabling better understanding of global issues, and to provide an active presence in the Antarctic o ...

and so named by the

UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) and ...

because a low rock and shingle

isthmus An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmus ...

at the south-eastern end of the island was the winter breeding site of emperor penguins.

Important Bird Area

A 467 ha site, coinciding with that of Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) No.107, has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports a breeding colony of

Antarctic shag The Antarctic shag (''Leucocarbo bransfieldensis''), sometimes referred to as the imperial cormorant, king cormorant, imperial shag, blue-eyed shag or Antarctic cormorant, is the only species of the cormorant family found in the Antarctic. It is s ...

s. It is likely that emperor penguins no longer breed on the island.

References

Important Bird Areas of Antarctica Seabird colonies Islands of Graham Land Fallières Coast {{FallièresCoast-geo-stub

Important Bird Area

See also

References