South East Island

Southeast Iceland ( Moriori and Māori: Rangatira, dt " East Island" ) is an uninhabited island in the archipelago of belonging to New Zealand Chatham Islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.

Geography

Southeast Iceland is, as the name suggests, in the southeast of the Chatham Islands, about 2 km south-east of Pitt Iceland and about 55 km southeast of Waitangi on the main island Chatham Iceland. The 2.5 km long and up to 1.5 km wide island has an area of 2.18 km ², making it the third-largest island in the archipelago. The island has partly on steep coastal cliff and reaches a height of 224 meters above the sea.

Fauna

In South East Iceland numerous rare or endemic plant and animal species occur, including endangered species, Chatham flycatcher ( Petroica traversi ). The island is also an important breeding area for seabirds such as the rare Chatham Petrel ( Pterodroma axillaris ) or the Dark shearwater ( Puffinus griseus ). On the south coast, a colony of New Zealand fur seals (Arctocephalus forsteri ). Until the 1960s, the island was used as grazing land for cattle and sheep. Since the last pets have left the island and Southeast Iceland was raised to a natural reserve, the plant populations of the once overgrazed island recover and typical of the sub-Antarctic islands of New Zealand Herb mega - companies spread out again.