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Prince Edward Islands
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The Prince Edward Islands are two small islands in the sub-antarctic Indian Ocean that are politically part of South Africa.
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The Prince Edward Islands are two small islands in the sub-antarctic Indian Ocean that are politically part of South Africa. As a group of two islands, the Prince Edward Islands are located at . The two islands are named Marion Island and Prince Edward Island. The only human inhabitants of the islands are the staff of a meteorological and biological research station run by the South African National Antarctic Programme on Marion Island.
Geography and geology
Marion Island, the larger of the two islands, is located at . It is roughly 19 km (12 miles) long and 12 km (7 mi) wide with a surface of 290 kmē (112 sq mi) and a coastline of some 72 km (45 mi), most of which are high cliffs. The highest point on Marion Island is Mascarin Peak (formerly State President Swart Peak), reaching 1242 m (4,274 ft) above sea level. Boot Rock is about 150 meters (500 ft) off the northern coast.
Prince Edward Island is much smaller (only about 45 kmē, 17 sq mi) and lies some 12 nm (19 km) to the northeast. Prince Edward Island is located at . At the Von Zinderen Bakker Peak northwest of the center, it reaches a height of 672 meters (2,204 ft). There are a few offshore rocks along the northern coast, like Ship Rock (100 meters, 330 ft, north of northernmost point) and Ross Rocks (500 meters, 1650 ft, from the shore).
The island group is about 955 nm (1770 km) south-east of Port Elizabeth in mainland South Africa.
Both islands are of volcanic origin. Marion Island is one of the peaks of a large underwater shield volcano that rises some 5000 m (16,500 ft) from the sea floor to the top of Mascarin Peak. The volcano was thought to be extinct, but erupted in 1980 and is now classed as "active".
Climate
The islands lie directly in the path of eastward-moving depressions all year round and this gives them an unusually cool and windy climate. Strong winds blow almost every day of the year and the prevailing wind direction is north-westerly. Annual rainfall averages from 2400mm up to over 3000mm on Mascarin Peak. It rains on average about 320 days a year (about 28 days a month) and the islands are among the cloudiest places in the world - about 1300 hours a year on the sheltered eastern side of Marion island but falling to around 800 hours away from the coast and on the wet western sides of Marion and Prince Edward Island.
Summer and winter have fairly similar climates with cold winds and threat of snow or frost possible at any time of the year. However, the mean temperature in February is 8.3°C (midsummer) and in August it is 3.9°C (midwinter).
History
The islands were discovered in 1663 by the Dutch ship Maerseveen. In 1772, Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne visited the islands and spent five days trying to land, thinking he had found Antarctica (then not yet proven to exist). In 1776, his expedition, now headed by his second-in-command, Jules Crozet, after the death of du Fresne, met James Cook in Cape Town. Cook subsequently set sail for the islands, but was unable to attempt a landing due to bad weather conditions. He named the smaller island after Prince Edward, the fourth son of King George III, and to the larger gave the name of Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne.
The first recorded landing was in 1803 and was made by a group of seal hunters, who did, however, find signs of earlier inhabitation, probably other sealers.
James Clark Ross also visited the islands in 1840 but was also unable to land. Finally, the islands were surveyed by Captain George Nares in 1873.
In 1908, the British government granted William Newton the rights to exploit guano deposits for the next twenty-one years, and a ten-year grant for seal exploitation to a sealing company in 1926. Also in 1908, shipwrecked hunters established a village at the north coast, called Fairbairn Settlement.
In late 1947 and early 1948, South Africa annexed the islands and installed the meteorological station on Transvaal Cove on the northeast coast of Marion Island. The research station was soon enlarged and today researches the biology of the islands, in particular the birds (penguins, petrels, albatrosses, gulls) and seals. The researchers have observed a seal trying to have sex with a penguin, "At first glimpse, we thought the seal was killing the penguin. But then we realised that the seal's intentions were rather more amorous. It was most certainly a once-off and has never previously or since been recorded anywhere in the world to our knowledge," said Nico de Bruyn of the University of Pretoria.
In 1949, five domestic cats were brought to Marion Island to deal with a mouse problem in the station. However, the cats multiplied quickly, and by 1977 there were about 3,400 cats living on the island, feeding on the burrowing petrels instead of the mice, threatening to drive the birds to extinction on the island. Some species of petrels did become extinct on Marion Island, and thus a "cat eradication program" was set up: a few cats were infected with the highly specific feline panleukopenia virus, which reduced the number of cats to about 600 by 1982. The remaining cats were killed by night-time shooting, and in 1991, only eight cats could be trapped in a twelve-month period. It is believed that there are no cats left on Marion Island today.
On September 22, 1979, one of the US Vela spy satellites recorded an activity near the Prince Edward Islands, which was initially interpreted as the "double flash" of a small nuclear test. The event is still controversial and is known as the Vela Incident.
Legal status
Marion Island and Prince Edward Island were claimed for South Africa by a South African Navy force from the HMSAS Transvaal on 29 December 1947 and 4 January 1948 respectively. On 1 October 1948 the annexation was made official when Governor-General Gideon Brand van Zyl signed the Prince Edward Islands Act 43 of 1948. Because the United Kingdom relinquished its claims on the islands to South Africa, no other nation has made a claim on the islands, and they have been occupied continuously since 1948 by South Africa, the status of the islands is not in dispute.
In terms of the Act, the islands fall under the jurisdiction of the Cape Town Magistrate's Court, and South African law as applied in the Western Cape applies on them. The islands are also deemed to be situated within the electoral district containing the Port of Cape Town; this is ward 55 of the City of Cape Town.
See also
External links
- - an account of the annexation of the islands
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