Macquarie Island is home to a wide variety of wildlife, including thousands of seals and millions of penguins, and was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a reservation of the state of Tasmania (Australia) and is administered by the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service.
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| Macquarie Island |
The island is located approximately 1,500 kilometers south-southeast of Tasmania, and approximately 1,200 kilometers from Antarctica. The Australian Antarctic Division research station is located in the northern part of the island. The island is five kilometers wide at its widest point, and 34 kilometers long. The total area of the island is 128 km².
History
The Macquarie Islands were accidentally discovered in the early 1800s by Frederick Hasselborough, an Australian seal hunter. Hasselborough made the claim of the island found to be the territory of Great Britain and its administration was handed over to the colony of New South Wales. Macquarie Island is named after Colonel Lachlan Macquarie, who was the governor of New South Wales in the early 1800s.
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| Macquarie Island |
It was the first encounter with this island. For the year 1911 it was converted into a base for the Aurora Expedition, which was a research and mapping project, led by Douglas Mawson, it had the purpose of exploring and mapping all of Antarctica.
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| Macquarie Island |
In parallel to the fulfillment of the program, in the year 1997 the Macquarie Islands were inscribed in UNESCO to be recognized as a World Heritage Site, on the basis of being the only site on earth, where the terrestrial mantle is exposed.
Penguins
Since the discovery of the Macquarie Islands, the penguins and their large populations impressed everyone who came to the island. They were exploited almost to extinction by the oil industry, however, in time the Macquarie Islands Marine Reserve was created. Royal penguins and Macquarie cormorants are endemic species.
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| Macquarie Island |
The Royal penguin is often confused with the macaroni penguin, due to its orange feathers that adorn its face, however, there is a characteristic that differentiates them, such as the white face of the Royal penguin, while the macaroni penguin has a color black.