| Crozet Islands
Îles Crozet
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| Motto: "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" | ||||
| Anthem: La Marseillaise | ||||
 Orthographic projection centred over the Îles Crozet.
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 One of the Crozet Islands |
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| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | Indian Ocean |
| Coordinates | 51°59′E |
| Archipelago | Crozet Islands |
| Total islands | 6 |
| Major islands | 3 |
| Area | 352 km (135.9 sq mi) |
| Highest elevation | 1,090 m (3,580 ft) |
| Highest point | Mont Marion-Dufresne |
| Country | |
| Overseas territory | French Southern and Antarctic Lands |
| District | Crozet Islands |
The Crozet Islands (French: Îles Crozet; or, officially, Archipel Crozet) are a sub-antarctic archipelago of small islands in the southern Indian Ocean. They form one of the five administrative districts of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.
Not including minor islets or rock reefs etc., the Crozet group consists of six islands. From west to east:
| No. | Island or Group (English) | Area | Highest Peak | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L'Occidental (Western Group) | ||||
| 1 | Île aux Cochons (Pig Island) | 67 km (26 sq mi) | Mont Richard-Foy, 770 m (2,526 ft) | 50°14′E |
| 2 | Île des Pingouins (Penguin Island, literally Auk Island) | 3 km (1.2 sq mi) | Mont des Manchots 340 m (1,115 ft) | 50°24′E |
| 3 | Îlots des Apôtres (Apostle Islets) | 2 km (0.8 sq mi) | Mont Pierre, 289 m (948 ft) | 50°25′E |
| L'Oriental (Eastern Group) | ||||
| 4 | Île de la Possession (Possession Island) | 150 km (58 sq mi) | Pic du Mascarin, 934 m (3,064 ft) | 51°46′E |
| 5 | Île de l'Est (East Island) | 130 km (50 sq mi) | Mont Marion-Dufresne, 1,090 m (3,576 ft) | 52°12′E |
| Îles Crozet (Crozet Islands) | 352 km (136 sq mi) | Mont Marion-Dufresne, 1,090 m (3,576 ft) | 45°57' to 46°29'S 50°10' to 52°19'E |
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Group of two major islands (Grand Île-Big Island, and Petite Île-Little Island) and about 20 pinnacle rocks.
The Eastern and Western Groups are 94.5 kilometres (58.7 mi) apart (from Île des Pingouins to Île de la Possession)
The Crozet Islands are uninhabited, except for the research station Alfred Faure (Port Alfred) on the East side of Île de la Possession, which has been continuously manned since 1963. Previous scientific stations included La Grande Manchotière and La Petite Manchotière.
Analysis of magnetic anomalies on the sea floor indicates that the Crozet Plateau formed some 50 million years ago. The islands are of volcanic origin, and basalt. Rock samples indicate volcanic origins going back to at least 8.8 million years.
The Crozet islands have an oceanic climate and some areas are a temperate rainforest.
Precipitation is high, with over 2,000 mm (78.7 in) per year. It rains on average 300 days a year, and winds exceeding 100 km/h (60 mph) occur on 100 days a year. The temperatures may rise to 18 °C (64.4 °F) in summer and rarely go below −5 °C (23 °F) even in winter.
The islands are part of the Southern Indian Ocean Islands tundra ecoregion that includes several subantarctic islands. In this cold climate plant life is mainly limited to grasses, mosses and lichens, while the main animals are insects along with large populations of seabirds, seals and penguins.
The Crozet Islands are home to four species of penguins. Most abundant are the Macaroni Penguin, of which some 2 million pairs breed on the islands, and the King Penguin. The Eastern Rockhopper Penguin also can be found, and there is a small colony of Gentoo Penguins. Other birds include Black-faced Sheathbills, petrels, and albatross, including the Wandering Albatross.
Animals living on the Crozet Islands include fur seals, and Southern Elephant Seals. Killer whales have been observed preying upon the seals. The transient killer whales of the Crozet Islands are famous for intentionally beaching (and later un-stranding) themselves while actively hunting the islands' breeding seal population. This is a very rare behaviour, most often seen in the Patagonia region of Argentina, and is thought to be a learned skill passed down through generations of individual Orca families.
The Crozet Islands have been a nature reserve since 1938. Introduction of foreign species (mice, rats, and subsequently cats for pest control) has caused severe damage to the original ecosystem. The pigs that had been introduced on Île des Cochons and the goats brought to Île de la Possession-both as a food resource-have been exterminated.
Another on-going concern is overfishing of the Patagonian Toothfish and the Albatross population is monitored. The waters of the Crozet Islands are patrolled by the French government.
The Crozet Islands were first discovered on 24 January 1772 by the expedition of Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, a French explorer. His second-in-command Jules (Julien-Marie) Crozet landed on Île de la Possession, claiming the archipelago for France. Marion du Fresne named the islands after Crozet, having already named Marion Island after himself.
In the early 19th century, the islands were often visited by sealers, to the extent that the seals had been nearly exterminated by 1835. Subsequently, whaling was the main activity around the islands, especially by the whalers from Massachusetts. In 1841 there were a dozen whaleships around the islands. Within a couple of years this had increased to twenty from the United States alone. Such exploitation was short-lived, and the islands were rarely visited for the rest of the century.
Shipwrecks occurred frequently at the Crozet Islands. The British sealer, Princess of Wales, sank in 1821, and the survivors spent two years on the islands. The Strathmore was wrecked in 1875. In 1887, the French Tamaris was wrecked and her crew stranded on Île des Cochons. They tied a note to the leg of an albatross, which was found seven months later in Fremantle, but the crew was never recovered. Because shipwrecks around the islands were so common, for some time the Royal Navy dispatched a ship every few years to look for stranded survivors.
France originally administered the islands as a dependency of Madagascar, but they became part of the French Southern Territories in 1955. In 1938, the Crozet Islands were declared a nature reserve. In 1961, a first research station was set up, but it was not until 1963 that the permanent station Alfred Faure opened at Port Alfred on Île de la Possession (both named after the first leader of the station). The station is staffed by 18 to 30 people (depending on the season) and does meteorological, biological, and geological research, maintains a seismograph and a geomagnetic observatory (IAGA code: CZT).
A 2012 French film, Saveurs du Palais, begins and ends with scenes in the Crozet Islands. The film's protagonist, a grandmotherly chef from the Perigord region of France who signed on as cook for the research station, had once been the personal chef to President Mitterrand.
The Marion Dufresne off the "port" of Crozet. East Island in the background.
One of the penguin colonies of the islands
The Eastern Group
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