MACQUARIE ISLAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 221, 19 August 1931, Page 4

MACQUARIE ISLAND.

SANCTUARY FOR BIRDS AND ANIMALS. In an address at the Australian Museum on the cruises of the recent Antarctic expeditions, Mr H. 0. Fletcher, palaeontologist, referred to the salvation of birds and animals on Macquarie Island, as a result of the efforts of Sir Douglas Mawson. Macquarie Island, he said, was 21 miles long and was narrow. Before 1914 the sealers had played havoc with the penguin and sea elephant life of the island, and the animals were killed in thousands for their oil. It was estimated that the sealers had killed 130.000 penguins. annually, after killing all the available sea elephants. Sir Douglas Mawson, after liis visit to the island in 1911, persuaded the New Zealand Government to proclaim Macquarie Island a sanctuary for bird and animal life. This was made law, and the fauna had increased to the original numbers, the sea elephants and king penguins being in greater numbers than on any other island visited during the recent cruises. The Royal penguins were again at their full strength. There were about 750,000 birds at the “Nuggets Rookery.”