SUB-ANTARCTIC MACQUARIE ISLAND - ORIGIN, HISTORY, ABUSE AND RECOVERY

Take your students to remote sub-antarctic Macquarie Island to discover its unique formation and its history of wildlife exploitation and the recent steps leading to recovery. Find out why thousands of fur seals, elephant seals and king penguins were killed. Reognise why cats and rabbits arrived on the island to become eventual feral pests. This unit can be used to study the impacts of human activity on native wildlife (birds and mammals) at a time when the demands for animal oil were increasing. Students recognise the impacts of human activity on native wildlife and will understand why eradication programmes dealing with feral animals have been necessary. This is a unit about over-exploitation, recovery and the need for improved methods of conservation.
Screen, study and discuss each page and your students should be able to explain the issues raised in the “why is it so?” final page. This unit could be used to support studies of the Antarctic; the study of wildlife; the history of Antarctic exploration; the human impact on wildlife and the lessons gained from past mistakes which are applied to present day environmental protection.