|
By Peter Rejcek
Revised ASPA plan for Cape Hallett preserves huge Adélie
colony
Kevin Pettway will be the first person to tell you it’s
not easy to get to Cape Hallett. But he’ll also tell
you the trip is well worth the effort to help protect
one of Antarctica’s biological gems.
The journey required the support of a nearby Italian
research station, Mario Zucchelli Station, and a couple
of extra nights stuck in a “bare bones” tent
camp thanks to the continent’s unpredictable weather.
“Getting out to Hallett is very difficult because
it is so far away [from McMurdo Station],” said Pettway,
the lead environmental specialist at Raytheon Polar Services
Co. (RPSC) .
“Having the Italian support was absolutely key
to the success of this project,” he added, explaining
that the crew at Terra Nova, located about halfway between
McMurdo and Cape Hallett, helped move people and cargo
by helicopter to the cape, a spit of land surrounded by
sea ice eight months of the year.
Site of a former joint U.S. and New Zealand research
station, Cape Hallett is home to a huge colony of Adélie
penguins, and a diverse range of lichens, moss and tiny
invertebrates. It’s also become a new model for how
the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) would like to approach
conservation of Antarctic resources in the future.
Cape Hallett first gained special protection under the
Antarctic Treaty system in 1966 at the request of the
United States. Following the 1998 implementation of a
comprehensive plan called the Protocol on Environmental
Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, Cape Hallett became
an Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) . Each ASPA
is associated with a plan designed to manage access and
to minimize impacts to the environment.
Pettway and his three-person team spent a week at Cape
Hallett to redefine the ASPA boundaries and to survey
the various animal populations. The USAP plans to submit
a revised ASPA plan for Cape Hallett at the next meeting
of the member nations to the Antarctic Treaty in Uruguay
later this year.
“We probably did the most thorough site assessment
of an ASPA that’s been done,” said Nate Biletnikoff,
manager of RPSC’s environmental engineering department.
RPSC provides much of the logistical support for the USAP,
which is managed by the National Science Foundation (NSF)
.
RPSC hired a subcontractor, Environmental Research &
Assessment (ERA) , which specializes in creating management
plans in polar environments, to help develop the ASPA
plan. Two ERA members, Colin Harris and Rachel Carr, used
high-precision GPS technology from Boulder, Colo.-based
UNAVCO to map the boundaries of the penguin colony, which
boasts about 64,000 breeding pairs.
“We basically surveyed the entire area,” Biletnikoff
said. “This is first time we’ve ever surveyed
the spatial extent of a penguin colony to this level of
detail.”
Tourism is partly the reason behind the detailed survey,
according to Biletnikoff. The International Association
of Antarctic Tour Operators said 322 tourists visited
Cape Hallett during the 2008-09 season.
While environmental protection has long been a fixture
in the management of Antarctica, people have not always
treaded so lightly on the continent. The original establishment
of Cape Hallett Station on a site dubbed Seabee Hook in
1956 involved the “eviction” of more than 7,500
penguins, including some 3,300 chicks, to clear space
for construction.
The colony declined from 62,900 pairs in 1959 to a low
of 37,000 pairs in 1968. It has since recovered its former
numbers and has started to re-occupy the site of the station,
which ceased operations in 1973. The area itself has been
cleaned up, and the last structures removed by the Italians
in January 2010. Many of the historical artifacts from
the station are located at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch,
New Zealand.
“The colony just keeps creeping forward. [ERA is]
anticipating that the colony will fill into the coastline
for the most part,” Biletnikoff said.
The new site map for tourist access proposes additional
landing sites for boats, he said, to help minimize disturbances
to the colony by ensuring operators come ashore at recognizable
landmarks.
The ASPA plan also includes a smaller restricted area
that has been the site of a comparative study of flora
since the 1960s. The site contains five different moss
and 18 kinds of lichens. Pettway said the team found the
stakes that defined the boundary and then built rock cairns
to better delineate the area so visitors would not accidently
disturb the sensitive vegetation.
“That was difficult — figuring out where it
was and moving the rocks without disturbing the moss and
lichens,” he said.
The environmental team also played scientist on behalf
of several researchers who have interests in the ecosystem.
For instance, they counted penguins and eggs for David
Ainley , a principal investigator on a long-term study
of the tuxedoed seabirds around the Ross Sea.
“It was a lot harder to count penguins than you
would think,” said Pettway, who, along with Jessie
Jenkins, field center supervisor, spent most of the week
tallying penguins, skuas and seals.
He also repaired an automatic weather station for the
University of Wisconsin-Madison and downloaded data for
Antarctica New Zealand from a long-term soil experiment
that is part of the Latitudinal Gradient Project .
“It goes beyond the ASPA management plan. We helped
Ainley out. We helped Antarctica New Zealand out. …
There are a lot of other things that we did out there,”
Biletnikoff noted.
( By the Numbers..
Square kilometers of updated Cape Hallett ASPA: 0.53 square
kilometers
Adélie penguins: 64,000 breeding pairs
South polar skuas: About 232 birds and 250 numbered nests
Other wildlife in the region: Emperor penguins, chinstrap
penguins, Wilson’s storm petrels, snow petrels, southern
giant petrels, Weddell seals, leopard seals and minke
whales.
Number of invertebrates: Eight species of mites and three
species of springtails
Vegetation: Five species of moss and 18 lichens
Total ASPA sites: 71
Number of ASPA sites under U.S. management: 13)
-
Antarctic
Sun -
|
