Bird Island is a man-made platform off the coast of
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
between
Walvis Bay
Walvis Bay (; ; ) is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies. It is the List of cities in Namibia, second largest city in Namibia and the largest coastal city in the country. The city covers an area of of land.
The bay is a ...
and
Swakopmund
Swakopmund ("Mouth of the Swakop River, Swakop") is a city on the coast of western Namibia, west of the Namibian capital Windhoek via the B2 road (Namibia), B2 main road. It is the capital of the Erongo Region, Erongo administrative district. It ...
. It serves as a
breeding ground for birds (primarily
Cape cormorant
The Cape cormorant or Cape shag (''Phalacrocorax capensis'') is a bird endemic to the southwestern coasts of Africa.
It breeds from the coastal area of Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast o ...
s) and yields
guano
Guano (Spanish from ) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. Guano is a highly effective fertiliser due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. Guano was also, to a le ...
, which is collected and sold, as a highly effective fertilizer.
History
Bird Island was conceived and constructed by Adolf Winter, a German who emigrated to
South West Africa
South West Africa was a territory under Union of South Africa, South African administration from 1915 to 1990. Renamed ''Namibia'' by the United Nations in 1968, Independence of Namibia, it became independent under this name on 21 March 1990. ...
(now known as Namibia) in 1912. Winter took a train from Swakopmund to nearby Walvis Bay and saw a natural offshore formation called Bird Rock, covered in guano from many birds. On the return trip, he noticed the guano had been washed away by the sea and saw a business opportunity.
Bird Island began as a wooden platform measuring four meters square, standing three meters above the sea surface. Winter finished this initial construction in March 1930. One year later he had enlarged the platform to 16 meters square, and by August 1931 had extended it to 1600 square meters. Guano was collected and sold annually, and expansion of the platform continued at a slower pace until 1937, when a large shipment of timber allowed further expansion of the platform to its current size of 17,000 square meters.
Economics
The guano collected from Bird Island is considered high quality for its high nitrogen content relative to other guano collection facilities in the region. It is cleaned in Swakopmund to remove feathers and other debris, ground to a powder, and exported to Belgium for US$285 per ton.
[Plaque at the National Marine Aquarium of Namibia, Swakopmund] The platform yields approximately 650 tons of guano annually.
References
Uninhabited islands of Namibia
Geography of Erongo Region
Artificial islands of Africa
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