The teeth of the wind : an environmental history of subantarctic islands

Abstract

Since the discovery of Amsterdam Island in 1552, the subantarctic islands have come slowly into view at the edge of European peripheral vision. During the twentieth century the quest for a polar continent was the one goal of southern exploration, and the subantarctic remained as little known as it is isolated. Its islands are minute in size, ranging from the few square kilometres of St Paul to the largest, Kerguelen, which at 6675 square kilometres (2580 square miles) is less than half the size of Australia's largest cattle stations. Unlike Antarctica and it is unlike Antarctica in almost every way - the subantarctic lacks any unity conferred by political or apolitical treaties. Its islands are the territories of a handful of widely spread nations, not only the southern hemisphere countries of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, but also Great Britain, France and Norway. Despite this, and the different personalities of each island, there is a connecting thread of common history and environment. The pattern of human contact is repeated on one island after another. None of the islands was inhabited when Europeans or North Americans discovered them, and all of them were quickly exploited for seals (first the fur seal, then the elephant seal). On each one, attempts at economically-motivated settlement for whaling, farming or fishing failed and, on most of them today, some kind of scientific and meteorological presence justifies their continuing possession by a parent nation. Though the islands are described as 'pristine' and 'remote' , humans have considerably influenced the subantarctic, even though they have conspicuously failed to settle it. In historical times, almost all of the island groups of the subantarctic (of which there are more than 20) has received a steady invasion of foreign animals (and fewer plants) - rats, mice, rabbits, dogs, cats, reindeer, horses, pigs, sheep, mouflon, goats, cattle, mink, brushtail possums, wekas, trout, salmon, hens, muscovy ducks, geese, diamond moth, sagina, annual bluegrass, dandelions. These introductions have often become established, at the cost of the native animals, including the millions of Southern Ocean seabirds which flock to the tiny islands to breed each summer. In the late twentieth century, costly pest control programs have removed some naturalised animals from some of the islands, occasionally preserving these animals for their interest to science and as potential breeding stock. This thesis examines the history of StPaul, Kerguelen, Heard, Macquarie, Auckland and Campbell (respectively two French, two Australian, and two New Zealand islands). These six islands provide examples of the commonalities which exist between subantarctic islands, as well as insights into the differences imposed by different parent nations. The islands have a biological and geographical unity as well as a common history, and they share the same execrably windy, cold, wet weather so inimical to human settlement. In recent times there have been the beginnings of fishing industries in the waters around the islands, and glimmerings of tourism. Travellers to the subantarctic islands are attracted by the abundant and spectacular animals and plants, and by their remoteness and remove from the more familiar signs of modem life. The human presence on subantarctic islands has been as disconnected in time as the islands are in space. For this reason, as well as the islands' obscurity, few have looked there for any historical unity, and this has to be constructed using a diversity of primary and secondary sources. This thesis uses these diverse sources, and follows the westerly winds driving around the globe, as it elucidates the unity of the apparently scattered set of islands that constitute the subantarctic.