Who does not dream of an island of her or his own? This dream can come true soon in the Falkland Islands, where Pebble Island is now for sale. It is not just any small island, but the 5th largest island of the whole Falklands, just outsized by Weddell and Saunders Islands and, of course, the two main islands, West and East Falkland. Pebble Island has an area of 10,622 hectares or 103 square kilometres.

There is a tenant farm on the island with 6000 sheep and 125 cattle as well as some simple accommodation for tourists. The farm as established as early as 1846 when Pebble Island and 3 neighbouring islands were bought by John Markham Dean for a mere 400 pound. A supply ship comes every once in a while and there is a little runway for flights from Stanley (45 minutes flying time).

Typical Falkland Island scenery in fine weather (the weather is not always fine).
White beaches, green hills, penguins.

Pebble Island was occupied by several hundred Argentine soldiers during the Falklands war in 1982, it was the site of the first combat operations on land in the Falkland Islands. The wreck of an Argentine aircraft and memorials to British sailors and soldiers who died after the bombing of HMS Coventry close to Pebble Island remind of these dark times.

Pebble Island is an important bird area. An impressive number of species is breeding there, including several thousand penguins (mainly Southern Rockhoppers and Gentoo penguins).

Claire Harris, descendant of John Markham Dean, has announced to sell the island. Offers can be made now until January, there is no minimum. But it is safe to assume that the buyer will have to put a bit more on the table than the 400 pound paid by John Markham Dean in his days.

Do marine biologists not already know about the feeding and migrational behaviour of humpback whales? After all, these animals are the best-studied whales in the southern hemisphere. So far, small data loggers attached to the animals have sampled depth data, migration routes and water characteristics. Now these little aids can even pick up 3-D motion patterns and record underwater videos. Australian and American scientists were interested in using these methods to find even more details about feeding behavior and food composition of the humpback whales.

Humpback whales, Antarctica.

At the same time, they used their time in the field to fasten conventional data loggers to the dorsal fin of minke whales. These whales live close to the ice in the southern summer and little is known about them. The scientists hope to gain more information about this sparsely studied whale species. Marine animals that benefit from pack ice habitats are particularly affected by increasing sea temperatures, ocean acidification and increasing strong winds.

The “South Georgia Habitat Restauration Project” has been followed in several news posts on this website before. This ambitious project is aimed at getting rid of all rats on the island of South Georgia.

Rats are a serious threat for seabirds. Seabird populations on South Georgia have always been impressive, but small in comparison to what they must have been like in times before the whalers incidentally introduced rats to the island. On remote islands which do not have natural predators, seabirds nest on flat ground or in burrows, in any case easily accessible for rats which eat eggs and chicks in massive numbers. After millions of years without rats or other terrestrial predators, seabirds do not have effective mechanisms of defence. Even large species are concerned: there are observations of Wandering albatross chicks being eaten alive on the nest.

The South Georgia pipit has returned quickly to old breeding areas.

Eradicating rats is always challenging and even more so on such a remote, wild and big island. It had been done successfully especially by New Zealand specialists on islands such as Campbell Island which belongs to New Zealand. The key technique is dropping poisoned bait from helicopters. The bait and dropping technique including timing are designed to eradicate rats while minimising damage to other wildlife. The main phase was completed in South Georgia in early 2015.

As the survival of only one pregnant female rat could ruin the success of the whole project, the subsequent evaluation period is of utmost importance. This phase of intense monitoring has been going on in South Georgia since the completion of the main phase. A comprehensive monitoring expedition has been carried out on South Georgia during the last austral summer season, involving trained dogs and other techniques to make sure no rat could remain undetected. The good news is that “Team Rat” could not find any traces of living rats on South Georgia, as Neil Alison of the South Georgia Heritage Trust (SGHT) could tell the BBC. A SGHT press release declares South Georgia rat-free, for the first time in 200 years!

Auch der Wanderalbatros wird von rattenfreien Brutgebieten profitieren.

Birds have started to return to their old breeding grounds quickly after the rats were gone, including the endemic South Georgia pipit. Until 2015, it was restricted to a few places like small, rat-free islands. Since then, it has returned to many areas on the main island of South Georgia. Also larger species including penguins and the majestic Wandering Albatross will benefit from rat-free breeding grounds.

The SGHT had initiated the project and raised about 10 million pounds that were needed mainly through private donations. Tourists contributed about 200,000 pounds per season through auctions and donations on cruise ships to South Georgia.

Many trips to Antarctica spanning a vast area from South Georgia to the Ross Sea and beyond have yielded a treasure of ten thousands of amazing photos. It was obvious to use them for a stunning set of antarctic postcards. Here it is!

The twelve photos present a wide spectrum of antarctic landscapes and wildlife from South Georgia to Campbell Island and from the Antarctic Peninsula to the Ross Sea. Albatrosses and Penguins (Emperor, Kings, Gentoos and Chinstraps) are in there just as some of Antarctica’s amazing scenery. And as a goody for antarctic gourmets, Scott’s hut at Cape Evans is also represented, with Mount Erebus towering above it.

This set of postcards is available in limited edition. Every set is numbered individually.

The new limited edition postcard set Antarctica with twelve stunning postcards.

Click here for more information about the new postcard set Antarctica.

And by the way – there is of course also a set of Spitsbergen postcards, also new, also limited edition.

There are a lot of visitors to the Antarctic Peninsula every austral summer. Most of them are watching wildlife and taking hundreds of pictures. Popular science projects like Happy Whale provide a lot of digital photo material for marine mammal researchers all over the world. So one could assume whale populations and their characteristics especially in the frequently visited Antarctic Peninsula are well established. However, nature can still surprise us.

American marine mammal scientists have been looking closely at different groups of Killer whales in the South Polar Ocean during the past decade. We now know about four different ecotypes of Killer whales in Antarctic waters. The largest Killer whales belong to type A. They mainly hunt Minke whales in the open sea. Type B Killer whales live close to the coast or the pack ice of the Antarctic Peninsula and type C animals are feeding in the Ross Sea region. The so far youngest and least known ecotype D roams in sub-antarctic waters, known beyond others to feed on fish of long lines.

Type B Killer whale, Antarctic Peninsula.

Researchers have been observed differences in body size within type B Killer whales whereas the body colouration, such as the big eye patch and the dorsal cape, does not show significant differences. But apparently, there are differences in group size, feeding behaviour and preferred habitat.

A complex habitat with abundant food resources favour the specialisation of predators. Animals might partition resources and habitats amongst themselves. This is called “niche differentiation” in ecology. Where some species (or sub-species) have similar food and habitat requirements, they are usually separated geographically, e.g. Killer whale type B and type C. Is there enough space and resources available to permit coexistence within one area, niches can be differentiated locally by specialisation. Like that, different ecotypes can develop and even new species can evolve over time.

In future we might look at type B Killer whales as two different ecotypes. The larger are hunting seals in the pack ice or close to the coast, whereas the smaller feed on brush-tailed penguins (Gentoo, Adelie, Chinstrap penguin) and fish. Like that both groups belong to a different trophic level in the food web: the larger are feeding on predators of krill feeders, the smaller feed on the krill feeders themselves.

There seem to be small genetic differences already. Individuals of type B can still mate with each other considering their biology, but members of the different size groups obviously rarely do so. Scientists suppose that the genetic differentiation might have started with the end of the last glaciation period, when a lot of new space became available due to the retreat of the ice.