Île aux Cochons, or Pig Island, is an uninhabited island in the subantarctic Crozet Archipelago. With an area of 67 km2 (26 sq mi) it is the third largest island of the group. Administratively, it is part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.
Description
Île aux Cochons photographed from on Loch Etive in between 1885 and 1911.Île aux Cochons photographed from on Loch Etive in between 1885 and 1911.
Île aux Cochons is the westernmost island of the archipelago, lying some 30 km north-west of Île des Pingouins and 15 km south-west of the Îlots des Apôtres. It is an eroded volcanic dome, scattered with inactive craters, and a coastline consisting partly of low cliffs. Introduced species include cats, rabbits and mice. The introduced pigs that gave the island its name have been eradicated. There is no human infrastructure and visits by researchers are rare.[1]
Important Bird Area
The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International as a breeding site for seabirds, and notably for its large penguin populations. It held the world's largest king penguincolony, with about half a million breeding pairs in the 1980s, but by 2018 this had fallen to 60,000 pairs, for as yet unexplained reasons.[2]
In a 2018 report in Antarctic Science, researchers estimated that the population of King penguins on the island had dwindled from 500,000 breeding pairs to just 60,000. With the last count of penguin population in 1982, the most recent demonstrates an 88% decrease in colony population.[2] Researchers are still uncertain of the cause but have suggested climate change, disease, or resource scarcity. A research expedition to the island was planned for late fall of 2019.[3][4]
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