Category: Subantarctic
Tramping around the ‘big green sponge’
Forty-five degree slopes, putrid seal wallows and gale force winds – these are some of the challenges and hazards of getting around Macquarie Island. Several walking tracks provide access between field huts and key locations on the island. To go Read More …
Penguin Day
World Penguin Day (25th April) seems like a good excuse to share some photos of one of Macquarie Island’s four resident penguin species, the king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus).
Return of the Megaherbs
Four years have passed since I first visited Macquarie Island and now the subantarctic island looks like a different place. The distinctive tussock grass is dotted across the coastal slopes in a scene reminiscent of the 1980s and 1990s when Read More …
Rewilding Macquarie Island
There is a long list of extinct animals which were endemic to a particular island. Island endemics are particularly vulnerable to introduced predators which can rapidly eliminate a small island population. Such was the fate of Macquarie Island’s only native Read More …
The last of Macquarie Island’s rabbits
Five years ago this month, hunters on Macquarie Island killed six rabbits. The hunters had been patrolling the Subantarctic tundra for a little over three months in the search for feral rabbits. At the time nobody knew these were the Read More …
Do treelines in the Southern Hemisphere follow the rules?
The southernmost treelines The treeline at the southern tip of South America, in Tierra del Fuego, reaches up to 600 m.a.s.l. At the same latitude, Macquarie Island has no trees or shrubs. Is the lack of trees in the Subantarctic Read More …
The end of an era: Macquarie Island research station to close down
UPDATE 19 SEPT 2016: Following a backlash from the public and scientific community the Australian Government is reconsidering the plan to close Macquarie Island station (see the backflipping ministerial announcement). We shall have to wait and see what the plan Read More …
Pictures of landscapes past, part 2
(Continued from Part 1). The kind of things plant ecologists often measure in the field – the height and percentage foliage cover of different plants, species lists – are difficult to obtain from looking at a photograph of the landscape Read More …