South Georgia Newsletter, April 2014

From South Georgia Website

- Disclaimer: This newsletter is not produced by GSGSSI; it does not necessarily reflect their views.

Three Commissioners In Short Succession

Colin Roberts was sworn in as the new Commissioner for SGSSI on Tuesday 29th April, taking over from interim Commissioner John Duncan who was in post to fill the gap between Commissioner Nigel Haywood leaving in February and Colin Roberts’ arrival.

Commissioner Roberts was sworn in (and as Governor of the Falkland Islands) in the Stanley Court and Council chamber. Afterwards he, his party, and invited guests proceeded to Victory Green where there was an inspection parade of the Falkland Islands Defence Force, and members of the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and Army along with youth organisations. There was a large crowd to welcome them and a 17-volley salute was fired. Colin Roberts is accompanied by his wife Camilla and they will be joined soon by their two sons and their dog. After the swearing in, the new Commissioner told local journalist John Fowler that he and his wife already felt “enormously and warmly welcomed.”

GSGSSI Chief Executive Officer Collects His OBE

The South Georgia Government Chief Executive & Director of Fisheries, Martin Collins, collected his OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) on April 4th. HRH Prince Charles presented the award during the investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace. The award was made for services to science and conservation in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Dr Collins, who attended the ceremony with his parents and nephew, said the awards ceremony day was fabulous.

Info: Penguin News

New Species Discovered In South Sandwich Islands By Fluke

Jaera tyleri is the name of a new species of isopod discovered in the sea off the South Sandwich Islands. The finding of the isopod was a fluke, due to the rare and chance find of a ‘whale fall’; a dead whale that had settled on the sea floor. Though they have never been seen before, there were tens of thousands of individual Jaera tyleri on the whale carcass bones; as scientists described it: “They were absolutely covered in these little critters - there were 500 to 6,000 specimens per square metre.”

Jaera tyleri look similar to the common woodlouse and are just under 4mm in length. It is the first in its genus to be found in the southern hemisphere, and may be unique to the whale bone habitat.

The whale carcass was found when scientists were monitoring a live video feed, beamed to scientists aboard the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) vessel RRS James Cook from a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) on the sea floor. The researchers were searching an undersea caldera close to Kemp Island for hydrothermal vents, or ‘black smokers’, when they stumbled upon the remains. “It was a complete surprise,” Dr Katrin Linse of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said, “We were all really thrilled. You could never hope to find a whale fall on purpose – it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. It gave us a rare opportunity to look at the ecology of these unique habitats, and which sorts of species settle on them. After spotting them on the cameras, we used the robotic arm of the ROV to pull a few of the bones up to the ship to examine them more closely.” What they found was the dense covering of the new isopod.

Close relations of the new bug are found throughout the shallower waters in the North Sea but this is the only species of Jaera ever to be found south of the equator.

“We looked on the rocks and on the sea floor surrounding the bones, but we couldn’t find them anywhere else,’ says Linse. ‘It is possible that they are unique to the whale bone habitat.” The paper announcing the new species can be read in full here.

Info: BAS

Fishing And Shipping News

The South Georgia toothfish fishing season opened on April 6th. Three vessels were already on station waiting for the start of the season and were joined midmonth by two others that were first inspected and licensed in Cumberland Bay. Early season catches have been variable to good though severe weather at the beginning of the month forced several vessels to seek shelter in Cumberland Bay.

In recent seasons the start date for the South Georgia toothfish fishery has been bought forward a few days each year. The benefits of starting earlier include the chance of better (safer) conditions at sea for the fishermen. Sadly, after many years of negligible bycatch of seabirds in this fishery, one vessel reported catching around 70 white-chinned petrels on one longline on April 16th. GSGSSI Chief Executive and Director of Fisheries Martin Collins said the circumstances surrounding the capture of the birds were being investigated and once complete a decision would be made about what, if any, action was required. “This is the most significant bird by-catch event we have had in the fishery for more than 10 years,” said Dr Collins. He explained that in the early years of the fishery (1990s) large numbers of birds were killed and as a consequence the Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) introduced a number of measures to reduce the bycatch, including limiting the season to the winter months, restricting the setting of lines to darkness, ensuring lines sink quickly and enforcing the use of bird scaring streamer lines. “As a consequence of these measures bird bycatch has been reduced to close to zero,” said Dr Collins. On the back of this success CCAMLR has, since 2010, approved an earlier start of the season that has been incrementally and experimentally brought forward by five days each year. The unfortunate incidental catch occurred on lines set during this experimental extension period. Dr Collins said licence conditions have now been adjusted to ensure that vessels complete the setting of lines at least three hours before sunrise to reduce the risk of incidental capture of white-chinned petrels. “This new condition will be in force until May 15th, by which time the risk to white-chinned petrels should be greatly reduced,” said Dr Collins.

(Original article: Penguin News)

Royal Navy vessel HMS Clyde was on patrol in the area in early April. Travelling aboard was FCO Desk Officer for South Georgia, Scott Davidson, who was making his first visit to the island for familiarisation.

Charter yacht Pelagic Australis called in to KEP at the beginning of April towards the end of a charter to the South Georgia Heritage Trust (SGHT) to conduct monitoring for any surviving rodents in the areas baited in Phase 2 of the Habitat Restoration Project. By the end of the monitoring, no evidence of surviving rodents had been found. Monitoring in the areas will need to continue for at least another two years, with no rodents detected, before the area can then be declared rodent-free.

Three New GSGSSI Coins

Three new GSGSSI coin designs have been released in recent months.

The birth of His Royal Highness the Prince of Cambridge is marked by the release of a coin dated 2013, which is based on a coin originally released the previous year. The original coin marked the wedding anniversary and 30th birthdays of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, to which has been added a special privy mark to congratulate them and to commemorate the birth of their son on July 22nd 2013. The coin shows the most anticipated moment of their Wedding Day, when the newly married couple displayed their love with a kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to the delight of the millions of people watching. The Privy Mark has been added to this coin and shows a stork delivering its precious bundle with the date of the birth. To represent the baby boy the stork is coloured blue. Prince George is third in line to the throne of the United Kingdom and this is the first time since Queen Victoria’s era that there have been three living male heirs.

Another coin dated 2013 commemorates a ‘Lifetime of Service’ by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness Prince Philip. Married in 1947, the Queen and Prince Philip have four children, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II acceded to the throne on February 6th 1952 following the death of her father, King George VI. Her Coronation took place on June 2nd 1953 at Westminster Abbey, the thirty-ninth Sovereign and sixth Queen to be crowned there. The South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands coin features a coronation image of Her Majesty above a diamond with reflections running through. The royal themed coins have been approved by Buckingham Palace.

The most recent coin release, also dated 2013, commemorates the centenary of the Grytviken Church, which was consecrated on Christmas Day 1913. The church was built on the initiative of Carl Anton Larsen, the founder and first manager of the whaling station. The wooden church was designed by Larsen’s son-in-law, and pre-fabricated in Strømmen, Norway. It has room for a congregation of 200 and an attached library. The two church bells were cast in Tønsberg, Norway, and were rung at midnight on Christmas Eve 1913. The church was consecrated by Pastor Kristen Løken who also baptised the daughter of the station manager during the service. Only sporadically used in the following years and once nearly allowed to become derelict and collapse, the church is now one of the attractions of a visit to Grytviken and is the only building that has retained its original function. The coin features the simple church amongst the snowy surrounds of South Georgia.

The obverse of all three coins carry an effigy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II by Ian Rank-Broadley FRBS and are available in Cupro Nickel and limited edition Proof Sterling Silver. South Georgia coins can be purchased from Pobjoy Mint and the South Georgia Post Office amongst other places.

http://www.pobjoy.com

SSI Seismic Activity Seen From Space

A NASA image, using clever cloud-erasing imagery, enabled the photograph below showing seismic activity in the South Sandwich Island chain of islands. The South Sandwich Islands are often shrouded with thick cloud, making it difficult to view the region from space. Using false-colour imagery to reveal events that would otherwise be obscured under the cloud cover; this image was taken on April 19th by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite.

The false-colour image uses a combination of non-visible (middle infrared and infrared) and visible (red) light, to distinguish clouds from snow and ice. As a result the ice-covered islands appear bright turquoise, the clouds light turquoise and the water in the ocean appears deep black. A volcanic plume in the north of the image is a moist mixture of gas and ash, and appears nearly white. A thin plume of white rises from the volcano on Zavodovski Island, the northernmost of the South Sandwich Islands and streams to the northeast. Further south, a wider white plume can be seen blowing across the Southern Ocean. This plume rises from the Mount Michael volcano, which is a young and frequently active strato-volcano located on Saunders Island, near the centre of the South Sandwich Island chain. The plume forms a chain of swirling eddies as it blows to the northeast. To the south, similar eddies can be seen behind three other islands. These are known as Von Kármán vortices that form where fluid flow (like that of atmosphere) is disturbed by an object such as a mountain forcing it to flow around the object and propagating a row of vortices downstream that alternate their direction of rotation, much like the eddies seen behind a pier in a river as water rushes past.

New BAS Research And Logistics Ship

NERC is commissioning a new state-of-the-art polar research ship. The investment in a new vessel was announced by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon George Osborne MP, who said that more than £200m of capital investment will be available for the new ship which is intended to provide a cutting-edge research facility with greater ice-strengthened capability (it is expected to have ice-breaking capabilities that will allow it to break ice of up to 2 metres when travelling at 3 knots) and longer endurance than NERC's existing polar research ships which are coming to the end of their operational life.

Professor Duncan Wingham, Chief Executive of NERC, said: "The UK's environmental science leads the world in excellence. NERC's ability to bring together the best UK polar scientists and support them by providing cutting-edge infrastructure and technology is fundamental to this success. We already know that the vast changes we have observed in the Arctic and the Antarctic will affect future climate and sea levels and the new ship will address the challenges we currently face in further exploring these environments. This vessel will be equipped to support oceanographic, marine ecosystem, geophysical and other research activities that help us make sense of the changing polar environments. The ship's advanced capability will put the UK in a leading position to work nationally and internationally with the scientific community to understand how changes in these remote environments will impact the wider global climate, information that is essential to meeting the needs of Government, business and wider society."

Director of BAS, Professor Jane Francis, said: "This an exciting time for UK polar science and I am delighted with this announcement. It signals a firm commitment by government and NERC to sustain and promote the UK's world-leading capability for UK research in both Antarctica and the Arctic. The last 15-20 years has seen remarkable developments in science and technology. Incorporating these new technologies in a new ice-strengthened research ship will offer a step-change in Britain's capability to deliver bigger and better science. It's fantastic news for our science teams at BAS, for our partners within UK universities, and for our collaboration with other national polar operators. We very much look forward to helping to develop the specification to enable us to make optimal use of the latest technologies in marine robotic and remotely operated instruments."

The ship will be able to accommodate 60 researchers and technical staff and will have flexible laboratory configurations and the capability for containerised laboratories. It will also have the capability of carrying remotely-operated deep-sea vehicles and a hangar and helipad for helicopters. It will have a cargo volume of around 4,200 cubic metres and will be nearly 130m in length with a breadth of 25m; draught of 7.5m, and gross tonnage of 12,790 tonnes. The ship will be used to resupply the five UK research stations in the Antarctic and South Georgia and will also clearly demonstrate and reinforce the continuing British presence in Antarctica and the South Atlantic.

The ship should be ready for operation by 2019.

Info BAS/NERC

Auction Of South Georgia War Medals

A collection of medals and other military and South Georgia war ephemera was put up for auction in April by Keith Mills who commanded the small group of Royal Marines who defended South Georgia when Argentine forces invaded in 1982.

Lieutenant, later Captain, K.P. Mills, Royal Marines, was 23 years old when he led his detachment of 21 men against a major Argentine assault by land, sea and air. Hugely outnumbered they nevertheless inflicted extensive damage to the Argentine corvette Guerrico, and shot down one helicopter and damaged another.

Mills’ six military medals for sale comprise a Distinguished Service Cross dated '1982'; a General Service Northern Ireland medal; a South Atlantic 1982 medal with rosette; a United Nations Medal for Cyprus; a United Nations Medal for the Protection Force in Former Yugoslavia, and a NATO Medal for Former Yugoslavia with Bar. The lot, which was put up for sale at the auctioneers Spink, also included many other items including a Daily Star Gold Award '81 Medal engraved 'Lt. Keith Mills and the 100 Marines who defended the Falkland Islands'; Mill’s Naval Pay and Identity Book; the negative of the historic photograph of the Royal Marines force which defended King Edward Point; a postcard sent by Mills to his girlfriend, from Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, dated February 1982, and other personal correspondence from the period. There is also a copy of Mills’ ‘Official Record of Proceedings’ for the action at Grytviken to his C/O, original dated 7.5.1982; a copy of Mills' recommendations for Operational Awards for his men as a consequence of the engagement with Argentine forces at Grytviken; a quantity of original newspaper cuttings, and many other items of philatelic and historical interest.

Keith Mills declined to say why he was selling the medals and other items in the collection which had an estimate of £140,000 to £180,000. It remained unsold at the end of the auction

Info Spink, https://www.spink.com/lot-description.aspx?id=14001000020

Macquarie Island Declared Pest Free

The largest pest eradication project started prior to the one currently underway on South Georgia was carried out on the Australian sub-Antarctic island of Macquarie. A monitoring program has not detected any pests for the past two years and now the eradication program to remove rats, rabbits and mice and other pests has been declared a success.

The Macquarie eradication Project Manager, Keith Springer, (who has also worked on the SGHT South Georgia Habitat Restoration Project), said the monitoring process at Macquarie has been intensive. "We've had teams that have scoured the island by day and by night, searching every nook and cranny that they could access, to make sure that there's none left, no rabbit and no rodent," he said.

The Tasmanian Government said it was the largest successful island pest-eradication program ever attempted. Former acting project manager Noel Carmichael told a local radio station the success is of worldwide significance. "There's been intense interest in the progress of the eradication on Macquarie because rabbits, rats and mice haven't been eradicated from an island of this size, all at the same time, before," he said. "It really is an important step in progressing the field of island eradication."

Keith Springer said other people running eradications elsewhere around the world are keen to learn from the success. "We've certainly been able to share some of the lessons that we've learnt on Macquarie with the people planning the South Georgia project, amongst others," he said. "Also in New Zealand and elsewhere in Australia there's certainly been interest in what we've been doing and what we've achieved and how we've gone about it. So it's a good thing to be able to share and try to progress other results around the world."

Original story abc.net.au.

DNA Used To Identify South Georgia’s Hunted Whales

Bones that have littered the beaches of South Georgia for a hundred years since the animals were killed by whalers are now being used to establish what species of whale were being hunted. Early whalers in South Georgia used only the outer blubber of the whale and let the rest of the carcass, the skrott, float away to rot on nearby beaches. The wasteful practice was mainly brought to an end a few years later when government policy was brought in to force the whalers to use the entire whale carcass including the bones.

Scientists collected samples from 281 whale bones to identify the species of whales killed and successfully extracted DNA from 82 samples. The study represents the most comprehensive investigation of historic genetic diversity in whales from around the Antarctic region prior to commercial whaling. The majority of the animals (158) were humpback whales, 51 were fin whales, 18 blue whales, two sei whales, and one a southern right whale. (One of the bones turned out to be from an elephant seal). Their findings are being published in the journal Marine Mammal Science.

"From a preliminary look at the DNA sequences, it appears that there was a high level of genetic diversity in these whales, which is what we'd expect from pre-exploitation samples," said Angela Sremba, a doctoral student in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University and lead author on the study. "The DNA from the bones has been surprisingly well-preserved, but it is important to capture this information now because the bones are susceptible to further degradation and contamination with age." Sremba believes most of the whale bones in the study are from the early period of whaling on the island, from 1904-13. "The species composition of the bone collection is quite similar to catch records during that time," she said.

More than 175,000 whales were killed during the 60 years shore whaling industry in South Georgia.

Scott Baker, associate director of Oregon State's Marine Mammal Institute, USA, and co-author on the paper, said whale populations still have not recovered in the Southern Ocean despite an abundance of food. "The waters around South Georgia island were productive feeding grounds for great whales before whaling," Baker said, "yet they have not returned here in any numbers despite nearly 50 years of protection. That suggests the possibility that the local population was extirpated, resulting in the loss of some cultural knowledge about the habitat."

Sremba, who is based at OSU's Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport with Baker, said knowledge of the whales' genetic diversity captured from these bones is invaluable. "This unique resource will allow us to compare historical genetic diversity to contemporary populations to assess the potential impact of the 20th-century commercial whaling industry," she said.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-scientists-dna-species-early-whaling.html#jCp

Info from an article by Mark Floyd in phys.org http://phys.org/news/2014-04-scientists-dna-species-early-whaling.html

Bird Island Diary

By Jerry Gillham, Penguin and Petrel Zoological Field Assistant and Winter Base Commander at the BAS Research Station at Bird Island.

April on Bird Island feels like a real transition from summer to winter. The changes in the weather and the wildlife are gradual, but looking back to the start of the month, the differences are noticeable. With an absence of any trees and falling leaves we get our autumnal colours from the earlier sunsets and, as it gets colder, the clearer night skies.

We haven’t yet had a decent fall of snow, but the streams and ponds have iced over a few times and the boggy ground has subsequently got firmer and easier to walk on. It’s given us a chance to put spikes on our boots, wrap up warm and practice a bit of winter walking.

On the meadows the albatross chicks are growing up fast, with the first black-brows and grey-heads either fledging or on the verge of fledging. Very few of the wandering albatross chicks have attendant adults, with most of them off at sea, returning roughly once a week with food. The tubby little chicks have an amazingly dense layer of downy feathers that keeps them warm through the lowest temperatures and biting winds. Jess has been keeping an eye on all of the chicks, looking at how many fledge successfully and taking chick weights on specific dates as well as ringing large numbers and deploying tiny GPSs on a select few. All this data will help assess the overall health of the bird populations and that of the wider Antarctic food web, along with learning more about their distribution and survival rates.

The Northern giant petrel chicks have all departed and the Southerns will be following them soon. Jerry weighed, measured and ringed all of them in the study area, which included a beautiful white morph individual. These only occur in the Southerns and of our entire adult population of 250+ birds there are only two white ones this year.

Nearer the coast the penguins are heading off to spend the winter at sea. The macaronis have finished their moult and won’t be seen on land again until they return in October. The gentoos hang around Bird Island during this time, occasionally coming ashore in big numbers.

The beaches themselves are extremely quiet as the fur seal pups have departed. Cian has been keeping track of the pups whilst awaiting the arrival of the first leopard seal of winter, but so far he is mainly seeing healthy, well fed looking females fur seals hauled out and resting after a tough season of puppy rearing.

South Georgia Snippets

Visiting officials and departures: The GSGSSI Operations Manager Keiron Fraser spent time in South Georgia on a busy and productive visit in early April. The building team left after a long season working on Discovery House, and several large buildings in Grytviken whaling station including the Nybrakka, Electrical Workshop and Main Store. Now the KEP community has reduced to smaller numbers, around 11 people, for the winter period.

Centenary of renowned biologist: Major Gerald E. H. Barrett-Hamilton died suddenly in South Georgia on January 17th 1914. The Major was a prolific writer and contributed greatly to our knowledge of mammal species around the world. He is remembered primarily for his ‘A History of British Mammals,’ published in parts between 1910 and 1921 (he died before completion) and the huge amount of contributions in published papers of the time.

To commemorate the Centenary of his death, various events took place in March in his native County Wexford, Ireland, where he was buried in March 1914. The first event was a church service with a special emphasis on celebrating the life of the Major with a sermon by Bishop Richard Henderson. The service was attended by Minister Paul Kehoe TD, Government Chief Whip and Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach and Defence, seven members of the Barrett-Hamilton family who had travelled from Canada, United States, France and the UK, and various dignitaries from around the county. The final event was a well-attended memorial lecture at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Park and Arboretum, entitled ‘A Passion for Mammals’ given by Chris Wilson.

Info http://www.wildside.ie

Shocking results of invasive species survey: The risks of biological invasion have been underlined in a study undertaken by Professor Steven Chown, head of the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University, Australia. Steven Chown was recently on South Georgia undertaking research on many things including the effect of some of the smaller introduced species in soils.

In a recently published study, he surveyed around 850 people - scientists, tourists, support personnel and ships' crew—who were headed to the Antarctic for short trips and, in the case of scientists, long stays during the 2007/08 austral summer. People were travelling by aircraft, research vessels and tourist ships from South America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The research team checked their pockets, bags, shoes and clothing to find out what they were inadvertently carrying to the Antarctic. The results, extrapolated to the number of people visiting the Antarctic, suggest that almost 75,000 flowering plant seeds, as well as lichen and mosses, are carried onto the shores of the Antarctic each year! The surprise was that scientists and science support personnel are the primary culprits. They were carrying 45 per cent of the seeds that were detected, while tourists only carried in 20 per cent of the unwanted material. One unwitting soul managed to carry in 472 seeds, representing 86 different species, on their personal gear. Cargo can also be a problem as organisms, such as spiders or small soil invertebrates and, very occasionally, rodents may be in or attached to the cargo.

Tourist visitors are typically one-off visitors to the region, and the cruise companies often issue brand new protective clothing, whereas scientists often have favourite bags and gear and they are repeat visitors to this region and others. According to Professor Chown, the highest risk items are footwear, trousers and bags belonging to field scientists, many of whom have previously visited alpine areas, botanic gardens or protected areas.

Antarctica is one of the most biologically isolated regions in the world and Professor Chown says many of the seeds are coming from high altitude mountain areas of the Arctic or sub-Antarctic regions. “'The Antarctic [Peninsula] is going to be most at risk from plants coming from areas that are climatically similar,” he said. “You find quite a few folk will spend the northern summer in the Arctic and the southern summer in the Antarctic.”

According to Professor Chown, a mix of self-regulation and organisation-based regulation with guidelines and regular inspections, is the only way to reduce the danger. You can hear a short radio clip of Steven Chown talking to ABC radio about his findings at the link below.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bushtelegraph/antarctica-seeds/5392098 Original article abc.net.au

Longest photo? The unusual photograph below may well be the longest single photographic exposure ever made at South Georgia. Alastair Wilson positioned the solargraph outside the Post Office at KEP and left it in place for 3 months. A solargraph records the track of the sun and this one recorded the period from the spring equinox to midsummer at the end of 2012. In the resulting image you can see the communications tower with the mountains behind, the dark arcs are the sun passing, and the lines are often broken by the presence of clouds.

Two-part television documentary about Tom Crean: Irish broadcaster RTE broadcast two programmes in April about Antarctic Explorer, Endurance crew member and South Georgia hero Tom Crean. They were presented by Charlie Bird who travelled to the Antarctic during filming of 'On the Trail of Tom Crean', which tells the story of this legendary Irishman and reveals the crucial role Crean played in some of the most dramatic events in the history of exploration.

Tom Crean left home at the age of 15 and after a chance encounter with Robert Scott found himself on his first Antarctic expedition and manhauling a sledge towards the South Pole. Later, with Ernest Shackleton, he was shipwrecked from the Endurance and was central to the safe recovery of all the marooned men, completing the lifeboat journey and first crossing of South Georgia’s unmapped interior to fetch help. After a lifetime of adventure, the big and modest man returned to the Dingle Peninsula and retired into obscurity to run the South Pole Inn.

Although the programmes have already been broadcast, the RTE website features interviews with relatives and other interesting information related to Tom Crean and the television programmes. http://www.rte.ie/tv/tomcrean/index.html

‘In the Shadow of Shackleton's Cross’ – An Antarctic memoir: A new book on life as a young child at the Government settlement at KEP in the late 1950s has just been published. Available in paperback only, author Beverly McLeod writes her memories of being a six-year old living close to the whaling community at Grytviken. The book is described as being a story of love and fear, the light and dark side of such a harsh environment and the impact it had on her and on her family. When Beverley lived at KEP there were eight houses huddled at the foot of Mount Duse. The family were there for four years during which Beverley could not attend school and largely only had herself for company. The 402 page book was published on March 31st by Orion Trading Company UK Ltd and is available from Amazon priced £16.99 ISBN-10: 1849860319

Whale oil’s role in the Dundee jute industry: In a report published in the Evening News on April 18th on the recent visit of PhD student Scott Smith to South Georgia, the article highlighted the way whale oil was used in the jute industry which was so central to the industrial development of the city of Dundee where Scott studies.

Jute was exported all around the world from Dundee, predominantly in the 19th century, to be made into a number of different items, including carpet, bags, tents and sand bags. Jute began as a by-product of whaling in the eighteenth century, when it was discovered that whale oil mixed with raw jute enabled workers to spin the fibre into fabric. The industry developed until the manufacturing of jute employed 50,000 people and by 1864 there were 61 spinning and power loom works in Dundee. Despite attempts to replace whale oil with mineral oil in the early 20th century, whale oil was not superseded until the 1930s. Dundee’s last jute factory, The Tayspinners Works, closed in 1998.

Original article: http://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/news/local/south-georgia-s-links-to-dundee-s-whaling-past-1.324111

Easter tweets: We can’t resist showing you this photo of Jess at Bird island’s Easter cake creation. These marzipan albatross chicks in chocolate nests were made for her fellow base members.

Dates For Your Diary

Plymouth Shackleton 100: Marking the centenary of the start of Shackleton’s Endurance expedition, when Endurance sailed from Plymouth, this will be the first of many centenary events being organised to mark this remarkable expedition. A three-day event will be centred on the Duke of Cornwall Hotel in Plymouth, where Shackleton and several of the crew had stayed prior to their ship’s departure 100 years ago. ‘Plymouth Shackleton 100’ is being held from August 6th- 8th and includes a black-tie dinner, lectures and shows and a re-enactment of the ship sailing by a tall ship. Register your interest with: Paul Coslett, DCPS Events Organiser.

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