TheCrozet Islands (French:Îles Crozet; or, officially,Archipel Crozet) are asub-Antarcticarchipelago of small islands in the southernIndian Ocean. They form one of the five administrativedistricts of theFrench Southern and Antarctic Lands.

Crozet Islands Îles Crozet (French)
Flag of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands Coat of arms
Motto: "Liberté, égalité, fraternité"
Anthem: La Marseillaise
Orthographic projection centred over theÎles Crozet.
Status	District ofFrench Southern and Antarctic Lands

One of the Crozet Islands
Crozet Islands
Geography
Location	Indian Ocean
Coordinates	46°22′48″S51°40′12″E / 46.38000°S 51.67000°E /-46.38000; 51.67000[2]
Archipelago	Crozet Islands
Total islands	6
Major islands	3
Area	352 km2 (136 sq mi)
Highest elevation	1,090 m (3580 ft)
Highest point	Mont Marion-Dufresne
Administration
France
Overseas Territory	French Southern and Antarctic Lands
District	Crozet Islands
Demographics
Population	18 (winter) 30 (summer)
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Part of	French Austral Lands and Seas
Criteria	Natural: vii, ix, x
Reference	1603bis-001
Inscription	2019 (43rdSession)

The Crozet Islands were discovered on 24 January 1772, by the expedition of French explorerMarc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, aboardLe Mascarin. His second-in-command, Julien-Marie Crozet, landed on Île de la Possession, claiming the archipelago for France.^[3] The expedition continued east and landed inNew Zealand, where Captain Marion and much of his crew were killed and cannibalized byMaoris.^[4] Crozet survived the disaster, and successfully led the survivors back to their base inMauritius. In 1776, Crozet metJames Cook atCape Town, at the start of Cook'sthird voyage.^[4] Crozet shared the charts of his ill-fated expedition, and as Cook sailed eastward, he stopped at the islands, naming the western groupMarion and the eastern groupCrozet.^[3] In the following years, sealers visiting the islands referred to both the eastern and western groups as the Crozet Islands, and Marion Island became the name of the larger of the twoPrince Edward Islands, which had been discovered by Captain Marion on the same expedition.^[3]

In the early 19th century, the islands were often visited by sealers, and theseals had been nearly exterminated by 1835. Between 1804 and 1911, 153 vessels visited the island for seals, seven of which wrecked on the coast.^[5] Subsequently,whaling was the main activity around the islands, especially by the whalers fromMassachusetts. 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. The islands were uninhabited during the late 19th century.^[6]

There were many shipwrecks on the Crozet Islands. The British sealer,Princess of Wales, sank in 1821, and the survivors spent two years on the islands. A castaway wrote 'The land affords no shelter whatever, there being neither tree nor shrub, and the weather is at most times extremely wet, and snow frequently on the ground'.^[7] In 1825 theAventure was wrecked and 7 men survived.^[8] TheStrathmore was wrecked in 1875 and 44 people survived on a small island for 7 months. In 1887, the FrenchTamaris was wrecked and her crew stranded on Île des Cochons. They tied a note to the leg of analbatross, which was found seven months later inFremantle, Western Australia, but the crew was never recovered.^[9] For some time, theRoyal Navy dispatched a ship every few years to look for stranded survivors. The steamshipAustralasian also checked for survivors en route to Australia.^[10]

Between 1924 and 1955, France administered the islands as a dependency ofMadagascar. In 1938, the Crozet Islands were declared a nature reserve. The Crozet Islands became part of theFrench Southern Territories in 1955. In 1961, a first research station was set up, but it was not until 1963 that the permanent stationAlfred 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 (varying by season). They performmeteorological,biological, andgeological research, and maintain aseismograph and a geomagnetic observatory (IAGA code: CZT). TheComprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization has listening equipment on the island and it was disclosed that two of its stations, the other being on Ascension Island, detected what is believed to be an underwater, non-nuclear explosion off the coast of Argentina and believed to be the fatal accident of theARA San Juan submarine in 2017.^[11][12]

The islands lie on theAntarctic Plate, roughly between theKerguelen hotspot andMadagascar and southern Africa. The oldest island,Île de l'Est, formed roughly 9 million years ago from a hotspot,^[13] which has continued forming islands to the west until, ostensibly, the present.^[14] Despite this apparently young age, no volcanic activity has been observed to date on any of the islands.

Not including minor islets or rock reefs etc., the Crozet group consists of six islands. From west to east:

⁽¹⁾ Group of two major islands (Grande Île—Big Island, and Petite Île—Little Island) and about 20 pinnacle rocks.

The Eastern and Western Groups are 94.5 km (51 nmi) apart (from Île des Pingouins to Île de la Possession).

The Crozet Islands are uninhabited except for the research stationAlfred Faure (Port Alfred) on the east side of Île de la Possession, which has been continuously staffed since 1963. Previous scientific stations included La Grande Manchotière and La Petite Manchotière.

The Crozet Islands have a maritime-influencedtundra climate (Köppen climate classification, ET). Monthly temperatures average around 2.9 °C (37 °F) and 7.9 °C (46 °F) in winter and summer, respectively.^[15] 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 (62 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 theSouthern Indian Ocean Islands tundraecoregion that includes severalsubantarctic islands. In this cold climate, plant life is mainly limited to grasses,mosses andlichens, while the main animals are insects along with large populations ofseabirds,seals andpenguins.^[15]

The Crozet Islands are home to four species ofpenguins. Most abundant are themacaroni penguin, of which some 2 million pairs breed on the islands, and theking penguin, home to 700,000 breeding pairs; half the world's population.^[18] Theeastern rockhopper penguin also can be found, and there is a small colony ofgentoo penguins. There is also an endemic subspecies of the duckEaton's pintail. Other birds includeblack-faced sheathbills,petrels, andalbatross, including thewandering albatross.

Mammals living on the Crozet Islands includefur seals andsouthern 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 thePatagonia region ofArgentina, and is thought to be a learned skill passed down through generations of individual orca families. These killer whales also seem to stay around the Crozet Islands year-round, feeding on mostly seals during the summer, and then feeding on penguins for the winter.

The Crozet Islands have been a nature reserve since 1938. Introduction of foreign species (mice,rats, and subsequentlycats for pest control) has caused severe damage to the originalecosystem. Thepigs that had been introduced on Île des Cochons and thegoats brought to Île de la Possession—both as a food resource—have been exterminated.

Another on-going concern isoverfishing of thePatagonian toothfish, as well as thealbatross population, which is being monitored. The waters of the Crozet Islands are patrolled by the French government.

A 2012 French film,Les Saveurs du Palais, begins and ends with scenes in the Crozet Islands. The film's protagonist, a grandmotherly chef from the Périgord region of France who signed on as cook for the research station, had once been the personal chef to PresidentFrançois Mitterrand.

In the 1978 novelDesolation Island, the fifth book inPatrick O'Brian'sAubrey–Maturin series, the fictionalnaval vessel HMSLeopard is severely damaged by a collision with an iceberg in the southwestern Indian Ocean. The crew attempts to make landfall for repairs on one of the Crozet Islands, but they miss the island and continue to drift towards the east, unable to reverse direction.

InHerman Melville'sMoby-Dick, the Pequod sails near the ‘distant Crozetts’, ’a good cruising ground for Right Whalemen’ in Chapter 52, ‘The Albatross’. See also chapter 58, ’Brit’.

Biggles Cuts it Fine byCaptain W. E. Johns is set mainly in the Crozet Islands, where a fictional Russian base is discovered on, what is called in the book, “Hog Island”.^[19]

•  
  TheMarion Dufresne off the "port" of Crozet. East Island in the background.
•  
  One of the penguin colonies of the islands
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  The Eastern Group as seen from outer space in December 1998.
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  Crozet Islands causing avon Kármán vortex street to form under low clouds.

• Administrative divisions of France
• Kerguelen Islands
• List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands
• List of French overseas islands
• List of volcanoes in French Southern and Antarctic Lands
• Overseas France
• Prince Edward Islands

• LeMasurier, W. E.; Thomson, J. W., eds. (1990).Volcanoes of the Antarctic Plate and Southern Oceans.American Geophysical Union.ISBN 0-87590-172-7.
• Church, Ian (1985).Survival on the Crozet Islands: The Wreck of the Strathmore in 1875. Waikanae, New Zealand: Heritage Press.ISBN 0-908708-02-5.

• Crozetvv.free.fr: Crozet Islands Information(in French)
• South Atlantic and Subantarctic Islands website — Crozet Islands webpage
• TAAF.fr: French Southern and Antarctic Lands(in French)
• DiscoverFrance.net: Kerguelen + Crozet Islands
• Google Earth view