The Parks team at Macquarie Island has had a busy season working on the usual tasks that rangers work on in most field centres but in a much more remote, challenging and beautiful area with an incredible abundance of wildlife. The areas that our team have worked on this year are biosecurity, to ensure the island is not affected again by rats, mice or other pests; wildlife monitoring; infrastructure; marine debris collection and tourism. We had a team of two rangers over winter, Paul Black the ranger in charge and wildlife ranger Helen Achurch, who were then joined in summer by Carly Lambert the summer Ranger and Penny Pascoe and Jas Allnutt, two research assistants from the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS).
During this season there were two significant milestones. Ninety years ago in May 1933, the island was first proclaimed a Sanctuary and later upgraded to a Nature Reserve and later still a World Heritage Area. In April 2024, it's ten years since Macquarie Island was declared free of rabbits, rats and mice following the successful Macquarie Island Pest Eradication Project (MIPEP). It’s a great reminder for us of the importance of keeping the island free of these and other introduced pests, so the vegetation can recover and the multitude of birds that breed on the island can do so without predation from rodents or landslips due to rabbit grazing.
To do this there’s a significant biosecurity screening operation that starts at the AAD Cargo Biosecurity Centre in Hobart prior to departure. Then there's screening during the resupply voyage, screening of cargo during the resupply – including the use of a rodent detector dog – and ongoing monitoring on the island throughout the year using a network of rodent and insect traps on the station and at the Razorback and at Sandy Bay. The pest species eradication project has been so successful there has been significant recovery of both flora and fauna across the island. Both Helen and Paul have found it a little more difficult to get around the island due to the increased vegetation growth since we were both here over 10 years ago.
Wildlife monitoring is an extremely important part of the work at Macquarie Island and Helen, our dedicated year-round wildlife ranger, organised and conducted most of the work over winter with help from Paul and AAD staff where needed.
Over the summer we were joined by Carly the summer ranger and Penny and Jas, research assistants from IMAS, who expanded the team's capability and output so additional tasks could be completed under this year’s wildlife monitoring program. The program aims to monitor wildlife species breeding on or visiting the island and has been ongoing for many years. This year our monitoring efforts focused on species breeding on the island, including king, gentoo and rockhopper penguins. We conducted annual censuses of breeding elephant seals in October, and fur seals in December through to February. We kept a close eye on the wandering albatross chicks throughout the winter and banded them prior to fledging. We monitored the wandering albatross that returned to breed over the summer as well as the island's population of grey-headed and black-browed albatross to obtain breeding success data. We also undertook censuses investigating chick production from the northern and southern giant petrels. The data collected during this season will be used to inform island management decisions and meet state and national reporting obligations such as the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatross and Petrels. It also helps inform decision making around declaration and management of marine protected areas such as the recent extension to the Macquarie Island Marine Park. You have to be strong and fit to do the work as Helen reckons she’s clocked over 2,000 km on foot roaming the island for this important work.
While roaming around, there’s approximately 150 kilometres of walking tracks, access corridors and elevated structures across the island to facilitate scientific research, management programs and recreational access for expeditioners. Most traffic around the island is on foot, with only a short section of vehicle track around the station limits. There are ccasional opportunities to move around the island by boat and some helicopter use during the annual resupply. At Sandy Bay and the station there are also tracks and viewing platforms so tourists visiting the island on educational tours can view the incredible wildlife that inhabits the island. The walking track network is extremely important for access around the island.
The track network traverses steep slopes, crosses creeks and rivers and is subject to heavy rain, snowfall, landslips and erosion. Some of it is disappearing under the increased vegetation growth that has occurred since the pest eradication project in 2011. It's a nice problem to have, but keeping on top of maintenance is a big task.
In recent years the Sandy Bay viewing platform was damaged by storm surge and has slumped due to slope movement. The bridge across Red River was damaged by heavy snow and subsequent snow melt, which broke the stringers on both sides of the bridge. This year, infrastructure repairs included replacing the Red River Bridge, adding cross braces to landings on the staircase up to the Razorback Lookout, adding a wildlife barrier around the base of the Digestors site viewing platform to deter seals from crawling under it, levelling two slumped landings on the Sandy Bay walkway and clearing overgrown vegetation from sections of walking track and structures in the Brothers Valley, the Doctors Track, the Digestors site, the Razorback lookout and the Sandy Bay walkway.
One of the sad things you see at Macquarie Island is the amount of marine debris that washes up on the west coast each year. This year the ranger team, AAD and Bureau of Meteorology expeditioners spent time during the winter scouring the beaches of the west coast collecting marine debris. Some of it was carried back to field huts while largr items were stored at strategically placed caches to be recovered later via helicopter during the annual resupply. The debris consisted of large amounts of fishing gear such as long line ropes and buoys, drink bottles and other various soft plastics. These are all harmful to marine life and the environment generally as well as being unsightly on an otherwise pristine beach in a remote World Heritage Area. While it was sad to see, it was great to see and experience the enthusiasm of our fellow expeditioners who helped us clean it up.
Macquarie Island and the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands are well-known wildlife hotspots and have a long history of educational tourism visits. It’s a very popular and exciting destination for viewing wildlife that are difficult to see elsewhere and in such huge abundance and at close range. Between December and February, the Parks and Wildlife Service hosted visits by 12 small tourist ships and one private yacht that made the long journey from Hobart.
All in all we’ve had quite a successful year completing a large amount of work that we couldn’t have achieved without the assistance of our cheerful fellow expeditioners.
Paul Black, Tas PWS Ranger in Charge
