Steeple Jason Island is a small island west of
Grand Jason Island. It is a part of the
Jason Islands
The Jason Islands (Spanish: ''Islas Sebaldes'') are an archipelago in the Falkland Islands, lying to the far north-west of West Falkland. Three of the islands, Steeple Jason, Grand Jason and Clarke's Islet, are private nature reserves owned by ...
in the
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouzet ...
. Along with Grand Jason, it is one of the "Islas los Salvajes" in Spanish (the Jasons being divided into two groups in that language).
Population and geography
None of the Jason Islands has ever been properly inhabited. Steeple Jason was used for sheep grazing up until the 1980s. There are the remains of a shearing shed on the island. There is also Steinhart Station, a field research station on the island, built in 2003 for monitoring wildlife.
The island is surrounded by low-lying land around the shore which quickly rises to a steep peak, hence the island's name.
The island was formerly owned by
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
philanthropist
Michael Steinhardt
Michael H. Steinhardt (born December 7, 1940) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager, philanthropist, and former antiquities collector. In 1967, he founded a hedge fund, Steinhardt Partners which he ran until he closed it in 1995. After a ...
, who later donated it to the
Bronx Zoo
The Bronx Zoo (also historically the Bronx Zoological Park and the Bronx Zoological Gardens) is a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York. It is one of the largest zoos in the United States by area and is the largest metropolitan zoo in ...
-based
Wildlife Conservation Society.
Wildlife
Steeple Jason is home to the largest colony of
black-browed albatrosses in the world. Over 70% of the global population of black-browed albatross breed in the Falkland Islands.
Other birdlife includes
southern rockhopper penguins,
Magellanic penguin
The Magellanic penguin (''Spheniscus magellanicus'') is a South American penguin, breeding in coastal Patagonia, including Argentina, Chile, and the Falkland Islands, with some migrating to Brazil and Uruguay, where they are occasionally seen as ...
s,
gentoo penguin
The gentoo penguin ( ) (''Pygoscelis papua'') is a penguin species (or possibly a species complex) in the genus ''Pygoscelis'', most closely related to the Adélie penguin (''P. adeliae'') and the chinstrap penguin (''P. antarcticus''). The ear ...
s,
slender-billed prions,
striated caracaras and
tussac-bird
The blackish cinclodes (''Cinclodes antarcticus'') is a passerine bird of the genus ''Cinclodes'' belonging to the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is native to the southern tip of South America including the Falkland Islands where it is known as ...
s. The Magellanic penguin is near the southern part of its range here, but the more cold-tolerant gentoo also occurs substantially south into
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...
. The sole mammalian life is marine, e.g. sea lions and
fur seals.
Large beds of
kelp surround the island, and the land is covered in grasses common to the other Falkland Islands, such as
tussac grass.
Birds and other wildlife on Steeple Jason Island are in many cases under threat, chiefly due to
overfishing
Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in th ...
in the South Atlantic Ocean over the last century.
[Wildlife Conservation Society. 2008]
References
* John Fowler. 1999
''Steeple Jason Island, Falkland Islands''* ''
The Blue Planet'',
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
, 2001.
* C. Michael Hogan. 2008
''Magellanic Penguin'', GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. N. Stromberg* Alex Kirby. 2002
BBC: ''Safe Haven for albatrosses'' (6 March 2002)* Wildlife Conservation Society. 2008
''WCS in the Falkland Islands''
Footnotes
{{Falkland Islands topics, state=collapsed
Jason Islands
Uninhabited islands of the Falkland Islands
Seabird colonies
Penguin colonies