The Forty-Fours are a group of islands in the
Chatham Archipelago, about east of the main
Chatham Island
Chatham Island ( ) ( Moriori: , 'Misty Sun'; ) is the largest island of the Chatham Islands group, in the south Pacific Ocean off the eastern coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is said to be "halfway between the equator and the pole, a ...
. They are called in
Moriori
The Moriori are the first settlers of the Chatham Islands ( in Moriori language, Moriori; in Māori language, Māori). Moriori are Polynesians who came from the New Zealand mainland around 1500 AD, which was close to the time of the ...
and in
Māori.
[Government of New Zealand, Dept. of Conservation (1999) ]
Chatham Islands Conservation Management Strategy
''. Accessed on 2012-07-13. The group includes the easternmost point of
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
, whose
South Island
The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...
is located about to the west.
Scientists on the
1954 Chatham Islands expedition visited the islands recording prolific bird life including albatrosses and
mollymawks.
The region is one of only two breeding sites for the
Chatham fulmar prion.
It 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 Int ...
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 i ...
due to it also supporting colonies of
Buller's and
northern royal albatrosses.
See also
*
Desert island
An uninhabited island, desert island, or deserted island, is an island, islet or atoll which lacks permanent human population. Uninhabited islands are often depicted in films or stories about shipwrecked people, and are also used as stereotypes ...
*
List of islands
This is a list of the lists of islands in the world grouped by country, by continent, by body of water
A body of water or waterbody is any significant accumulation of water on the surface of Earth or another planet. The term most often refer ...
References
Islands of the Chatham Islands
Uninhabited islands of New Zealand
Important Bird Areas of the Chatham Islands
Seabird colonies
Extreme points of New Zealand
{{OutlyingNZ-geo-stub