A pair of Royal Navy and Royal Marines adventurers has completed a summer of sea trials as they prepare to take an authentic replica of Sir Ernest Shackleton's famous lifeboat back to the icy wastes of the South Pole.
Blue whales are the subject of a new SGSSI stamp issue released on August 31st. The four stamp designs are based on watercolour paintings by artist Kim Chater, according to the latest release from South Georgia News and Events.
Funds generated by the sale of fish confiscated from a vessel that had been poaching in the South Georgia and South Sandwich Island’s Fishery Zone (SGFZ) are being put to good use to fight illegal fishing elsewhere in the Southern Ocean.
Only one longliner remained fishing in South Georgia waters at the end of the season on August 31. Four longliners were fishing at the start of August, but just one remained to complete its allotted fish quota. The others completed their TAC at various times through the month then sailed for the Falkland Islands for catch verification.
To many, the killer whale, also known as orca, is considered the panda of the sea (a not-so-cuddly black and white ocean beast). Whale scientists have been particularly busy over the last 20 years studying the killer whale and we now know a whole lot about this species or, as it turns out, possibly several species.
The Shallow Marine surveys Group, which normally operates around the Falkland Islands, completed what they described as a, “highly productive expedition,” to South Georgia earlier this year, exploring the sub-tidal and inter-tidal habitats along the island’s north coast.
For consular purposes the Uruguayan Foreign Affairs ministry refers to the Malvinas Islands, which are claimed by Argentina with the support of Mercosur members, as the “dependent territory” of the “Islas Falklands”.
Argentina made a technical presentation last week before the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, CLCS, on the exterior limits of the Argentine shelf in which the claimed territories of the Malvinas, South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands and ‘Argentine Antarctica’ were included.
The July edition of the South Georgia Newsletter has an interesting comment on the recent announcement that the Falklands’ population of black-browed Albatross has seen a healthy increase in the number of breeding birds, information that has been submitted to BirdLife International for use in the Red List assessment process
The July edition of the South Georgia Newsletter recalls a major British military and political event in the South Atlantic has been largely overlooked by the region’s history books. A Royal Navy task force, codenamed Operation Journeyman, was deployed to the waters around South Georgia and the Falklands in 1977 following the occupation of Southern Thule in the South Sandwich Islands by 50 Argentine “scientists”.