Falklands Conservation

NEWS FROM THE FALKLANDS

Falklands Conservation has moved into spacious new offices on Ross Road, Stanley. Easy to spot as visitors to the Islands amble up the 'front road' to the Falkland Islands Museum, the new centre is able to offer an attractive display of local wildlife, an information service and a sales counter for souvenirs and publications.

The postal address for our Falklands office has been changed from PO Box 31 to:

This winter has brought a number of unusual sightings. The wing and leg of a bird found in the Moody Brook area appears to be an American Purple Gallinule Porphyrula martinicia . This is a rare vagrant species which breeds in freshwater marshes and slow-moving streams of tropical and sub-tropical South America, but winters south in the Buenos Aires province of Argentina. This is only the fourth sighting since 1934, the last being near Stanley by Lord Buxton in 1983 when the bird was later identified by the British Museum.

A pair of Cinnamon Teal Anas cynaoptera have been spotted amongst a flock of Speckled Teal. This is a very uncommon duck, with a widespread distribution from southern Peru through central Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and southeastern Brazil to Argentina. There is a very small breeding population in the Falklands.

A possible sighting of a Aplomado Falcon Falco femoralis was reported from Saunders Island. This is a usually solitary bird found between southern USA and Tierra del Fuego.

We have the first report of a Barn Owl Tyto alba tuidara on South Georgia, spotted in an old freezer store at Grytviken. Barny, as the visitor was named, could enjoy a long and successful hunting career here given the many rats in the abandoned whaling station. It is presumed that he was carried there either from the Falklands or the South American mainland in one of the big westerly storms that South Georgia has recently experienced. The Barn Owl is one of the rarest breeding birds in the Falklands usually found near to settlements where gorse thickets provide safe shelter for nesting sites and introduced rats and mice are more numerous.

(This information has been compiled with reference to Atlas of Breeding Birds of the Falkland Islands by Robin & Anne Woods and Guide to Birds of the Falkland Islands by Robin Woods)

"As far as the special co-operation area is concerned, we are bound to work within the parameters of the Joint Declaration between the UK and Argentina, but that doesn't prevent us from undertaking some urgent environmental survey work of our own covering the South West shores and approaches of the Islands, on which I know there is considerable local concern about potential pollution hazards."

Saturday 20th September was designated Beachwatch 97 day by the Marine Conservation Society. The campaign aims to clean beaches, collect and identify litter and then to act upon the findings to put pressure on sources of marine pollution.

Falklands Conservation took part in this worldwide initiative by running a major beach clean up at Whalebone Cove, near Stanley, East Falkland. Besides organising volunteers to pick up rubbish from the beach, this year a SCUBA team carried out an Underwater Beachwatch to check the sublittoral zone for harmful debris. With such a wealth of marine wildlife in the Falklands, this is an attempt to focus attention here on the litter dumped in our oceans which affects even the most remote islands on the globe.

The impact of marine litter on the environment is wide ranging. Other than the initial aesthetic point of a beautiful white sand Falklands beach covered in junk which can have a very negative effect on tourism and local pleasure alike, it has drastic effects on the marine ecosystem. Entanglement leading to drowning, asphyxiation and predation are a major threats to wildlife as is the slow release of chemical pollutants to the water from plastic and manmade substances. Ingestion of litter causes internal damage to animals, resulting in death. Seabed dwellers suffer too, by damage to the seafloor from heavy objects and a lack of oxygen supply due to a layer of plastic and other debris.

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