 Saint-Paul with Quille Rock in the foreground | |
 Map of Île Saint-Paul | |
  Île Saint-Paul | |
| Other names | Saint Paul Island |
|---|---|
| Geography | |
| Location | Indian Ocean |
| Coordinates | 38°43′S77°31′E / 38.717°S 77.517°E /-38.717; 77.517 |
| Area | 8.3 km2 (3.2 sq mi)[1] |
| Length | 5 km (3.1 mi) |
| Highest elevation | 268 m (879 ft) |
| Highest point | Crête de la Novara |
| Administration | |
| Overseas territory |  French Southern and Antarctic Lands |
| District | Saint Paul and Amsterdam Islands |
| Demographics | |
| Population | Uninhabited |
 Interactive map of Île Saint-Paul | |
| Part of | French Austral Lands and Seas |
| Criteria | Natural: vii, ix, x |
| Reference | 1603bis-003 |
| Inscription | 2019 (43rdSession) |
Île Saint-Paul (French pronunciation:[ilsɛ̃pɔl], "Saint Paul Island") is anisland forming part of theFrench Southern and Antarctic Lands (French:Terres australes et antarctiques françaises, TAAF) in theIndian Ocean, with an area of 6 km2 (2.3 sq mi; 1,500 acres). The island is located about 90 km (56 mi) south of the largerÎle Amsterdam 55 km2 (21 sq mi), 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) northeast of theKerguelen Islands, and 3,000 km (1,900 mi) southeast ofRéunion.
It is an important breeding site forseabirds. A scientific research cabin on the island is used for scientific or ecological short campaigns, but there is no permanent population. It is under the authority of a senior administrator on Réunion.
Île Saint-Paul is avolcanic island with a triangular shape that measures no more than 5 km (3.1 mi) at its widest point. It is the top of an active volcano; the volcano last erupted in 1793 (from its SW flank), and is rocky with steep cliffs on the east side. The thin stretch of rock that used to close off the crater collapsed in 1780, admitting the sea through a 100 m (330 ft) channel; the entrance is only a few meters deep, thus allowing only very small ships or boats to enter the crater. The interior basin, 1 km (0.62 mi) wide and 50 m (160 ft) deep, is surrounded by steep walls up to 270 m (890 ft) high. There are activethermal springs.
The island is antipodal ofCheyenne County,Colorado, one of the few places in thecontinental United States with a non-oceanicantipode.
The island is located on the mainly under sea Amsterdam-Saint Paul Plateau which is ofvolcanic hotspot origin,[2]: 128 with the currently activeAmsterdam-Saint Paul hotspot believed to be located close to the island. The aphyric (nophenocrysts) basalts found on Saint Paul are distinct from other basalts found to date on the Amsterdam-Saint Paul Plateau, being mildly alkalic,incompatible element-enriched and highly fractionated.[3]: 181 The island is no more than 400,000 years old and was formed by magma that was a simple binary mixture between upper mantle and the Amsterdam-Saint Paul hotspot plume.[3]: 181
Île Saint-Paul was first discovered in 1559 by thePortuguese. The island was mapped, described in detail and recorded in paintings by members of the crew of thenauSão Paulo, among themFather Manuel Álvares and the chemist Henrique Dias. Álvares and Dias correctly calculated the latitude as 38° South. The ship was commanded by Rui Melo da Câmara and was part of the Portuguese India Armada commanded by Jorge de Sousa. TheSão Paulo, which also carried women and had sailed from Europe and stopped inBrazil, would be the subject of a dramatic and movingstory of survival after it sank south of Sumatra.[4]
The next confirmed sighting was made by Dutchman Harwick Claesz de Hillegom on 19 April 1618.[5] There were further sightings of the island through the 17th century. One of the first detailed descriptions of it, and possibly the first landing, was made in December 1696 byWillem de Vlamingh.[5][6]
In sailing-ship days captains would occasionally use the island as a check on their navigation before heading north.[7] Saint-Paul was occasionally visited by explorers, fishermen, and sealers in the 18th and 19th centuries, among which was the American sealerGeneral Gates, which called at the island in April 1819. George William Robinson, an American sealer, was left on the island to hunt seals, and stayed there for 23 months until theGeneral Gates returned for him in March 1821. Robinson subsequently returned to Saint-Paul in 1826 to gather sealskin, sailing fromHobart aboard his own vessel, the schoonerHunter.
The sealing period lasted from 1789 to 1876. Sealing visits are recorded by 60 vessels, four of which ended in shipwreck. Sealing era relics include the ruins of huts and inscriptions.[8]
France's claim to the island dates from 1843, when a Capitain Mieroslawski re-discovered the island with a group of fishermen fromRéunion; interested in setting up a fishery on Saint-Paul, Mieroslawski pressed the Governor of Réunion to take possession of both Saint-Paul andAmsterdam Island. This was performed by means of an official decree dated 8 June 1843, and on 1 July, Martin Dupeyrat, commanding the shipL'Olympe, landed on Amsterdam Island and then on Saint-Paul on 3 July, and hoisted thetricolor. Surviving evidence of this claim is an inscribed rock situated on the edge of Saint-Paul's crater lake, inscribed "Pellefournier Emile Mazarin de Noyarez, Grenoble, Canton de Sassenage, Département de l'Isère, 1844". The decree giving the islands St Paul and Amsterdam in possession of Mieroslawski is located in Archives Maritimes in Paris. All fishery operations were, however, abandoned in 1853, when the French government renounced its possession of the two islands.[9]
The first good map of the island was not drawn up until 1857, when the Austrian frigateNovara landed a team which studied the flora, fauna, and geology from November to December.[10][11]
On the 2nd of January 1865, the Confederate warship, theCSS Shenandoah, stopped briefly at Saint-Paul on its way to Australia. The ship had difficulty passing through the thick kelp field growing in the island's sheltered interior harbor. Several sailors explored the island and returned with a penguin, some eggs, and a chicken. They also surprised two French fishermen who informed the Confederates that they were used to seeing no one for six to eight months of the year.[12]
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In 1871, a British troop transport,HMSMegaera, was wrecked on the island. Most of the 400 persons on board had to remain upwards of three months before being rescued. A short, impressionistic account of the two French residents encountered by the shipwrecked crew appears inJudith Schalansky'sAtlas of Remote Islands (2010).[13]
In September 1874, a French astronomical mission conveyed by the sailing shipLa Dive spent just over three months on Saint-Paul to observe thetransit of Venus; geologistCharles Vélain took the opportunity to make a significant geological survey of the island.
In 1889,Charles Lightoller, who was later to become famous as the Second Officer of theRMSTitanic, whose sinking he survived, was shipwrecked here for eighty eight days when the sailingbarqueHolt Hill ran aground. He describes the shipwreck and the island in his autobiography,Titanic and Other Ships. Lightoller speculated that pirates used the island and their treasure could be buried in its caves.[14]
In 1892, the crew of the French sloopBourdonnais, followed by the shipL'Eure in 1893, again took possession of Saint-Paul and Amsterdam Island in the name of the French government.
In 1928, theCompagnie Générale des Îles Kerguelen recruited René Bossière and several Bretons and Madagascans to establish aspiny lobster cannery on Saint-Paul, "La Langouste Française". In March 1930, at the end of the second season, most of the employees left, but seven of them stayed on the island to guard the installations, supposedly for just a few months. The promised relief arrived much too late. When the ship finally came, in December 1930, five people had died, mostly from lack of food and scurvy: Paule Brunou (a child born on the island who died two months after her birth), Emmanuel Puloc'h, François Ramamonzi, Victor Brunou, and Pierre Quillivic. Only three survivors were rescued. This event has since come to be known asLes Oubliés de Saint-Paul ("the forgotten ones of Saint Paul").[15][16]
A few years later in 1938, the crew of a French fishing boat was stranded on the island. Distress calls sent by the crew over short-wave radio were fortuitously received 11,000 miles away in the United States. The message was relayed to the Navy and the French consul in San Francisco, while 12-year-old Neil Taylor, an amateur radio operator in California, made contact with the stranded crew and assured them that help was on the way.[17]
The island has a cooloceanic climate and the slopes of the volcano are covered in grass. It is a breeding site forsubantarctic fur seals,southern elephant seals androckhopper penguins. It was also the breeding site for an endemic flightless duck and several kinds ofpetrel before the introduction of exotic predators and herbivores, includingblack rats,house mice,European rabbits, pigs and goats during the 19th century or earlier. The pigs and goats have since disappeared or been eradicated. Black rats were eradicated in January 1997 following an aerial drop of 13.5 tonnes ofbrodifacoum anticoagulant poison baits over the island.[18]
The island, with the adjacent islet of Quille Rock, has been identified as anImportant Bird Area (IBA) byBirdLife International because it supports several breedingseabirds. The island's subtropical location gives it an avifauna distinct from that ofsubantarctic islands and contains several breeding species which are rare in the region. Saint Paul's seabirds nested mainly on Quille Rock until rat eradication allowed some species, notablyMacGillivray's prions andgreat-winged petrels, to recolonise the main island.[18] Other species include a colony of some 9000 pairs ofnorthern rockhopper penguins, about 20 pairs ofsooty albatrosses, a few pairs ofIndian yellow-nosed albatrosses, and small numbers ofAustralasian gannets,fairy prions,little andflesh-footed shearwaters,Wilson's storm petrels andsooty terns. The island might once have had a species of duck as a painting from 1793 shows one.[citation needed] However, it is not clear if this is conspecific with theAmsterdam wigeon (Mareca marecula) or a separatetaxon. No specimens have been found though, so the existence of this cannot be proven.[19]
