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Île Saint-Paul (Saint Paul Island) is an
island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An isla ...
forming part of the
French Southern and Antarctic Lands The French Southern and Antarctic Lands (french: Terres australes et antarctiques françaises, TAAF) is an Overseas Territory (french: Territoire d'outre-mer or ) of France. It consists of: # Adélie Land (), the French claim on the continen ...
(''Terres australes et antarctiques françaises'', TAAF) in the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...
, with an area of . The island is located about south of the larger
Île Amsterdam Île Amsterdam (), also known as Amsterdam Island and New Amsterdam (''Nouvelle-Amsterdam''), is an island of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands in the southern Indian Ocean that together with neighbouring Île Saint-Paul to the south ...
(), northeast of the
Kerguelen Islands The Kerguelen Islands ( or ; in French commonly ' but officially ', ), also known as the Desolation Islands (' in French), are a group of islands in the sub-Antarctic constituting one of the two exposed parts of the Kerguelen Plateau, a lar ...
, and southeast of
Réunion Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island o ...
. It is an important breeding site for
seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same envir ...
s. A scientific research cabin on the island is used for scientific or ecological short campaigns, but there is no permanent population. It is under the authority of a senior administrator on Réunion.


Geography

Île Saint-Paul is a
volcanic island Geologically, a high island or volcanic island is an island of volcanic origin. The term can be used to distinguish such islands from low islands, which are formed from sedimentation or the uplifting of coral reefs (which have often formed ...
with triangular in shape that measures no more than at its widest point. It is the top of an active volcano; the volcano last erupted in 1793 (from its SW Flank), and is rocky with steep cliffs on the east side. The thin stretch of rock that used to close off the crater collapsed in 1780, admitting the sea through a channel; the entrance is only a few meters deep, thus allowing only very small ships or boats to enter the crater. The interior basin, wide and deep, is surrounded by steep walls up to high. There are active
thermal spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...
s. The island is antipodal of Cheyenne County,
Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...
, one of the few places in the
continental United States The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...
with a non-oceanic antipode.


History


Early sightings

Île Saint-Paul was first discovered in 1559 by the
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
. The island was mapped, described in detail and recorded in paintings by members of the crew of the Nau ''São Paulo'', among them the Father Manuel Álvares and the chemist Henrique Dias. Álvares and Dias correctly calculated the latitude as 38° South. The ship was commanded by Rui Melo da Câmara and was part of the Portuguese India Armada commanded by Jorge de Sousa. The ''São Paulo'', which also carried women and had sailed from Europe and stopped in
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, would be the subject of a dramatic and moving story of survival after it sank south of Sumatra. The next confirmed sighting was made by Dutchman Harwick Claesz de Hillegom on 19 April 1618. There were further sightings of the island through the 17th century. One of the first detailed descriptions of it, and possibly the first landing, was made in December 1696 by
Willem de Vlamingh Willem Hesselsz de Vlamingh (November 1640 – ) was a Dutch sea captain who explored the central west coast of New Holland ( Australia) in the late 17th century, where he landed in what is now Perth on the Swan River. The mission proved fruit ...
.


19th century

During sailing-ship days captains would occasionally use the island as a check on their navigation before heading north. Saint-Paul was occasionally visited by explorers, fishermen, and sealers in the 18th and 19th centuries, among which was the American sealer ''General Gates'', which called at the island in April 1819. George William Robinson, an American sealer, was left on the island to hunt seals, and stayed there for 23 months until the ''General Gates'' returned for him in March 1821. Robinson subsequently returned to Saint-Paul in 1826 to gather sealskin, sailing from
Hobart Hobart ( ; Nuennonne/ Palawa kani: ''nipaluna'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Home to almost half of all Tasmanians, it is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-small ...
aboard his own vessel, the schooner ''Hunter''. The sealing period lasted from 1789 to 1876. Sealing visits are recorded by 60 vessels, four of which ended in shipwreck. Sealing era relics include the ruins of huts and inscriptions. France's claim to the island dates from 1843, when a group of fishermen from
Réunion Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island o ...
, interested in setting up a fishery on Saint-Paul, pressed the Governor of Réunion to take possession of both Saint-Paul and
Amsterdam Island Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban area ...
. This was performed by means of an official decree dated 8 June 1843, and on 1 July, Martin Dupeyrat, commanding the ship ''L'Olympe'', landed on Amsterdam Island and then on Saint-Paul on 3 July, and hoisted the tricolor. The only surviving evidence of this claim is an inscribed rock situated on the edge of Saint-Paul's crater lake, inscribed "Pellefournier Emile Mazarin de Noyarez, Grenoble, Canton de Sassenage, Département de l'Isère, 1844". All fishery operations were, however, abandoned in 1853, when the French government renounced its possession of the two islands. The first good map of the island was not drawn up until 1857, when the Austrian frigate ''
Novara Novara (, Novarese: ) is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With 101,916 inhabitants (on 1 January 2021), it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin. It i ...
'' landed a team which studied the flora, fauna, and geology from November to December. In 1871, a British troop transport, HMS ''Megaera'', was wrecked on the island. Most of the 400 persons on board had to remain upwards of three months before being taken off. A short, impressionistic account of the two French residents encountered by the shipwrecked crew appears in
Judith Schalansky Judith Schalansky (born 20 September 1980) is a German writer, book designer and publisher. Work Her book '' Atlas of Remote Islands'' won first prize in the Stiftung Buchkunst's The Most Beautiful German Books competition (German: Die schö ...
's ''
Atlas of Remote Islands ''Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot On and Never Will'' is a book by Judith Schalansky originally published in Germany in 2009 by Mare Verlag (). The atlas contains maps of 50 islands chosen by the author with accompan ...
'' (2010). In September 1874, a French astronomical mission conveyed by the sailing ship ''La Dive'' spent just over three months on Saint-Paul to observe the
transit of Venus frameless, upright=0.5 A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a tr ...
; geologist
Charles Vélain Charles Vélain (16 May 1845 – 6 June 1925) was a French geologist and geographer. He was born in Château-Thierry. Charles Vélain's route to the field of geology was an unusual one. He was a student of pharmacy. He studied geology later a ...
took the opportunity to make a significant geological survey of the island. In 1889,
Charles Lightoller Charles Herbert Lightoller, (30 March 1874 – 8 December 1952) was a British mariner and naval officer. He was the second officer on board the and the most senior member of the crew to survive the ''Titanic'' disaster. As the officer in ch ...
, who was later to become famous as the Second Officer of the RMS ''Titanic'', was shipwrecked here for eight days when the sailing
barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts having the fore- and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) rigged fore and aft. Sometimes, the mizzen is only partly fore-and-aft rigged, b ...
''Holt Hill'' ran aground. He describes the shipwreck and the island in his autobiography, ''Titanic and Other Ships''. Lightoller speculated that pirates used the island and their treasure could be buried in its caves. In 1892, the crew of the French sloop ''Bourdonnais'', followed by the ship ''L'Eure'' in 1893, again took possession of Saint-Paul and Amsterdam Island in the name of the French government.


20th century

In 1928, the ''Compagnie Générale des Îles Kerguelen'' recruited René Bossière and several Bretons and Madagascans to establish a
spiny lobster Spiny lobsters, also known as langustas, langouste, or rock lobsters, are a family (Palinuridae) of about 60 species of achelate crustaceans, in the Decapoda Reptantia. Spiny lobsters are also, especially in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, So ...
cannery on Saint-Paul, "La Langouste Française". In March 1930, at the end of the second season, most of the employees left, but seven of them stayed on the island to guard the installations, supposedly for just a few months. The promised relief arrived much too late. When the ship finally came, in December 1930, five people had died, mostly from lack of food and scurvy: Paule Brunou (a child born on the island who died two months after her birth), Emmanuel Puloc'h, François Ramamonzi, Victor Brunou, and Pierre Quillivic. Only three survivors were rescued. This event has since come to be known as ''Les Oubliés de Saint-Paul'' ("the forgotten ones of St. Paul"). A few years later in 1938, the crew of a French fishing boat was stranded on the island. Distress calls sent by the crew over short-wave radio were fortuitously received 11,000 miles away in the United States. The message was relayed to the Navy and the French consul in San Francisco, while 12-year-old Neil Taylor, an amateur radio operator in California, made contact with the stranded crew and assured them that help was on the way.


Environment

The island has a cool
oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ...
and the slopes of the volcano are covered in grass. It is a breeding site for
subantarctic fur seal The subantarctic fur seal (''Arctocephalus tropicalis'') is found in the southern parts of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans. It was first described by Gray in 1872 from a specimen recovered in northern Australia—hence the inappropri ...
s,
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 and
rockhopper penguin The rockhopper penguins are three closely related taxa of crested penguins that have been traditionally treated as a single species and are sometimes split into three species. Not all experts agree on the classification of these penguins. Some ...
s. It was also the breeding site for an endemic flightless duck & several kinds of
petrel Petrels are tube-nosed seabirds in the bird order Procellariiformes. Description The common name does not indicate relationship beyond that point, as "petrels" occur in three of the four families within that group (all except the albatross f ...
before the introduction of exotic predators and herbivores, including
black rat The black rat (''Rattus rattus''), also known as the roof rat, ship rat, or house rat, is a common long-tailed rodent of the stereotypical rat genus ''Rattus'', in the subfamily Murinae. It likely originated in the Indian subcontinent, but is ...
s,
house mice The house mouse (''Mus musculus'') is a small mammal of the order Rodentia, characteristically having a pointed snout, large rounded ears, and a long and almost hairless tail. It is one of the most abundant species of the genus ''Mus''. Although ...
,
European rabbit The European rabbit (''Oryctolagus cuniculus'') or coney is a species of rabbit native to the Iberian Peninsula (including Spain, Portugal, and southwestern France), western France, and the northern Atlas Mountains in northwest Africa. It has b ...
s, pigs and goats during the 19th century or earlier. The pigs and goats have since disappeared or been eradicated. Black rats were eradicated in January 1997 following an aerial drop of 13.5 tonnes of
brodifacoum Brodifacoum is a highly lethal 4-hydroxycoumarin vitamin K antagonist anticoagulant poison. In recent years, it has become one of the world's most widely used pesticides. It is typically used as a rodenticide, but is also used to control larger ...
anticoagulant poison baits over the island.Micol & Jouventin (2002).


Important Bird Area

The island, with the adjacent islet of Quille Rock, 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 Inte ...
(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 ...
because it supports several breeding
seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same envir ...
s. The island's subtropical location gives it an avifauna distinct from that of
subantarctic The sub-Antarctic zone is a region in the Southern Hemisphere, located immediately north of the Antarctic region. This translates roughly to a latitude of between 46° and 60° south of the Equator. The subantarctic region includes many islands ...
islands and contains several breeding species which are rare in the region. Saint Paul's seabirds nested mainly on Quille Rock until rat eradication allowed some species, notably Macgillivray's prions (a subspecies of Salvin's prion) and
great-winged petrel The great-winged petrel (''Pterodroma macroptera'') is a petrel. Taxonomy This species was formerly treated as containing two subspecies - ''P. m. macroptera'' and ''P. m. gouldi'', the latter of which is endemic to New Zealand. As of 2014, th ...
s, to recolonise the main island. Other species include a colony of some 9000 pairs of
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 and Atlantic Oceans. It is described as distinct from the southern rockhopper penguin. ...
s, about 20 pairs of
sooty albatross The sooty albatross, dark-mantled sooty albatross or dark-mantled albatross,BirdLife International (2008b) (''Phoebetria fusca''), is a species of bird in the albatross family. They breed on sub-Antarctic islands and range at sea across the S ...
es, a few pairs of
Indian yellow-nosed albatross The Indian yellow-nosed albatross (''Thalassarche carteri'') is a member of the albatross family, and is the smallest of the mollymawks. In 2004, BirdLife International split this species from the Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross; however Clements ...
es, and small numbers of
Australasian gannet The Australasian gannet (''Morus serrator''), also known as the Australian gannet or tākapu, is a large seabird of the booby and gannet family, Sulidae. Adults are mostly white, with black flight feathers at the wingtips and lining the trailin ...
s,
fairy prion The fairy prion (''Pachyptila turtur'') is a small seabird with the standard prion plumage of blue-grey upperparts with a prominent dark "M" marking and white underneath. The sexes are alike. This is a small prion of the low subantarctic and sub ...
s, little and
flesh-footed shearwater The flesh-footed shearwater (''Ardenna carneipes''; formerly ''Puffinus carneipes'') is a medium-sized shearwater. Its plumage is black. It has pale pinkish feet, and a pale bill with a distinct black tip. Together with the equally light-billed p ...
s,
Wilson's storm petrel Wilson's storm petrel (''Oceanites oceanicus''), also known as Wilson's petrel, is a small seabird of the austral storm petrel family Oceanitidae. It is one of the most abundant bird species in the world and has a circumpolar distribution mainly ...
s and
sooty tern The sooty tern (''Onychoprion fuscatus'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. It is a bird of the tropical oceans, returning to land only to breed on islands throughout the equatorial zone. Taxonomy The sooty tern was described by Carl Linnae ...
s. The island might once have had a species of duck as a painting from 1793 shows one. However, it is not clear if this is conspecific with the Amsterdam duck (''Anas marecula'') or a separate taxon. No specimens have been found though, so the existence of this cannot be proven.BirdLife International. (2012). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Île Saint Paul. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 2012-01-08.


See also

* List of volcanoes in French Southern and Antarctic Lands *
Administrative divisions of France The administrative divisions of France are concerned with the institutional and territorial organization of French territory. These territories are located in many parts of the world. There are many administrative divisions, which may have ...
* French overseas departments and territories * Islands controlled by France in the Indian and Pacific oceans * List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands *
Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands is a terrestrial biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The predominant vegetation in this biome consists of grass and/or shrubs. The climate is temperate and ranges from semi-arid to sem ...


References


Notes


Sources

* *


External links

*
Pictures of Île Saint-Paul

Antipodes of the USA

Isla de Saint Paul
(Spanish) {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint-Paul, Ile
Saint Paul Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
Uninhabited islands of France Former populated places in the Indian Ocean Île Amsterdam Island restoration Stratovolcanoes of France Important Bird Areas of Île Amsterdam Islands of the Indian Ocean Volcanoes of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands Seal hunting Submarine calderas
Île Saint-Paul Île Saint-Paul (Saint Paul Island) is an island forming part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands (''Terres australes et antarctiques françaises'', TAAF) in the Indian Ocean, with an area of . The island is located about south of the la ...