Hercules Bay & Stromness
Step ashore on any beach in South Georgia and it is impossible not to be impressed. It may be the immaculate appearance of an individual king penguin or snow capped peaks rising to 3,000 metres that catches the eye or is captured on camera. But time and time again thoughts turn to the sheer quantity of biomass sitting on every beach.
There is more vegetation onshore here than in Antarctica, but other than introduced mammals such as reindeer there is little here that takes advantage of this. Whether it is thousands of penguins or seething masses of fur seals, almost everything we see reflects the rich and productive waters of the Southern Ocean that bathe South Georgia. Eastward flowing cold water currents upwell around the islands bringing nutrients to the surface and nourishing blooms of plankton such as the copepods we saw with the aid of the video microscope. The same current drifts krill from the Antarctic Peninsula into these waters. Abundant plankton such as these form the basis of food webs at sea that support the life we see
on land.
It is said that there are over 400,000 pairs of king penguins at South Georgia, over 1 million birds in total. An adult king penguin weighs about 12 kg - so that's at least 12,000 metric tons of king penguins. And then of course there are the fur seals, estimated population about 4 million. An adult male fur seal weighs in at about 180 kg, females considerably less at about 45 kg. So there are perhaps more than 400,000 tons of fur seals in the islands. We are not here at the peak season for the southern elephant seals (estimated 400,000 animals, weighing in at up to 4 tons for a mature male) which are at sea feeding. And offshore there are whales - one humpback may weigh in at 40 tons.
The numbers begin to get mind boggling. We have been overwhelmed by the abundance of wildlife we have shared our time on land with. Marine animals that take advantage of South Georgia as a safe place to come ashore to breed, but they would not be here without the rich waters of the Southern Ocean.
Step ashore on any beach in South Georgia and it is impossible not to be impressed. It may be the immaculate appearance of an individual king penguin or snow capped peaks rising to 3,000 metres that catches the eye or is captured on camera. But time and time again thoughts turn to the sheer quantity of biomass sitting on every beach.
There is more vegetation onshore here than in Antarctica, but other than introduced mammals such as reindeer there is little here that takes advantage of this. Whether it is thousands of penguins or seething masses of fur seals, almost everything we see reflects the rich and productive waters of the Southern Ocean that bathe South Georgia. Eastward flowing cold water currents upwell around the islands bringing nutrients to the surface and nourishing blooms of plankton such as the copepods we saw with the aid of the video microscope. The same current drifts krill from the Antarctic Peninsula into these waters. Abundant plankton such as these form the basis of food webs at sea that support the life we see
on land.
It is said that there are over 400,000 pairs of king penguins at South Georgia, over 1 million birds in total. An adult king penguin weighs about 12 kg - so that's at least 12,000 metric tons of king penguins. And then of course there are the fur seals, estimated population about 4 million. An adult male fur seal weighs in at about 180 kg, females considerably less at about 45 kg. So there are perhaps more than 400,000 tons of fur seals in the islands. We are not here at the peak season for the southern elephant seals (estimated 400,000 animals, weighing in at up to 4 tons for a mature male) which are at sea feeding. And offshore there are whales - one humpback may weigh in at 40 tons.
The numbers begin to get mind boggling. We have been overwhelmed by the abundance of wildlife we have shared our time on land with. Marine animals that take advantage of South Georgia as a safe place to come ashore to breed, but they would not be here without the rich waters of the Southern Ocean.
