Cooper Bay
The killing lasted for nearly two hundred years. The assault on the wildlife of South Georgia was relentless, but today we experienced the beginnings of a recovery so profound and so joyful that, despite a constant rain, we reveled in the new beginning.
Following the news of Captain Cook’s discovery of South Georgia and the fur seals that crowded the shores, the first sealers arrived in 1786. Valued for their lovely fur, once the long guard hairs had been removed, fur seals created many fortunes. Resisting the greed was impossible and, consequently, the fur seal population plummeted. With the decline in fur seals, sealers went to other more southerly and more productive islands.
Captain Larsen, after his ship, the Antarctic, was trapped and destroyed in the ice east of Paulet Island, over-wintered eating seals and Adelie Penguins. He was saved the next season by the Uruguay. Without returning to Europe he financed, with Argentine benefactors, a whaling station at Grytviken. The first whales were killed in 1904, and the killing continued unabated until 1965.
But whales and fur seals were not the only animals that were hunted. Elephant seals were killed for their oil and even penguins were boiled in large, metal trypots. It was a time when the resources of the world seemed limitless and little thought was given to the consequences of this massive assault on a remote island’s wildlife.
As we rode around Cooper Bay in Zodiacs, we were met by scores of fur seals frolicking in the water and curious about our boats. Their playful antics made it hard to believe that their numbers had been so low. Today, they crowded the shoreline, tumbled over the offshore shallow rocks and scaled the steep cliffs.
Along the shore lazed a few elephant seals that had not left following the breeding season. They were so phlegmatic that a gentoo penguin sat atop the back of one young male. In the tussock grass we spotted a small brown bird, the South Georgian pipit, now restricted to offshore islands because of rats inadvertently introduced by the hunters.
But it was the hundreds of Macaroni penguins with yellow feathers in their crowns that captured our attention. They sat on the rocks offshore, crowded the shoreline and formed continuous streams up and down the slope where they nested. With their yellow headdress, they reminded us of the English Dandies, known as Macaronis, who sported the latest feather-fashioned caps from Italy as well as the line from Yankee Doodle Dandy: “...put a feather in your cap and call it macaroni.” How many of us have sung that line without realizing how it was related to the birds we were now watching.
Today, in Cooper Bay, we shared in the rebirth of South Georgia’s wildlife. The recovery is by no means complete but the trends are encouraging and, if enough of us remember the causes of the declines of the past, our children and grandchildren may one day get to see South Georgia as Captain Cook saw it. And what a joy that would be.
The killing lasted for nearly two hundred years. The assault on the wildlife of South Georgia was relentless, but today we experienced the beginnings of a recovery so profound and so joyful that, despite a constant rain, we reveled in the new beginning.
Following the news of Captain Cook’s discovery of South Georgia and the fur seals that crowded the shores, the first sealers arrived in 1786. Valued for their lovely fur, once the long guard hairs had been removed, fur seals created many fortunes. Resisting the greed was impossible and, consequently, the fur seal population plummeted. With the decline in fur seals, sealers went to other more southerly and more productive islands.
Captain Larsen, after his ship, the Antarctic, was trapped and destroyed in the ice east of Paulet Island, over-wintered eating seals and Adelie Penguins. He was saved the next season by the Uruguay. Without returning to Europe he financed, with Argentine benefactors, a whaling station at Grytviken. The first whales were killed in 1904, and the killing continued unabated until 1965.
But whales and fur seals were not the only animals that were hunted. Elephant seals were killed for their oil and even penguins were boiled in large, metal trypots. It was a time when the resources of the world seemed limitless and little thought was given to the consequences of this massive assault on a remote island’s wildlife.
As we rode around Cooper Bay in Zodiacs, we were met by scores of fur seals frolicking in the water and curious about our boats. Their playful antics made it hard to believe that their numbers had been so low. Today, they crowded the shoreline, tumbled over the offshore shallow rocks and scaled the steep cliffs.
Along the shore lazed a few elephant seals that had not left following the breeding season. They were so phlegmatic that a gentoo penguin sat atop the back of one young male. In the tussock grass we spotted a small brown bird, the South Georgian pipit, now restricted to offshore islands because of rats inadvertently introduced by the hunters.
But it was the hundreds of Macaroni penguins with yellow feathers in their crowns that captured our attention. They sat on the rocks offshore, crowded the shoreline and formed continuous streams up and down the slope where they nested. With their yellow headdress, they reminded us of the English Dandies, known as Macaronis, who sported the latest feather-fashioned caps from Italy as well as the line from Yankee Doodle Dandy: “...put a feather in your cap and call it macaroni.” How many of us have sung that line without realizing how it was related to the birds we were now watching.
Today, in Cooper Bay, we shared in the rebirth of South Georgia’s wildlife. The recovery is by no means complete but the trends are encouraging and, if enough of us remember the causes of the declines of the past, our children and grandchildren may one day get to see South Georgia as Captain Cook saw it. And what a joy that would be.
