operate in the Antarctic. From 1908, the Scottish company Chr. Salvesen operated a land based whaling station under the name New Whaling Company. A transport vessel and a whale catcher arrived on 22 December and brought a decommissioned land station from Fáskrúðsfjörður in Iceland. The first whale was caught on 16 January 1909, with 226 whales (215 sei) being caught the first season. Results were unsatisfactory though, with the station last operating in 1915. Of the reported catch, over 900 were sei whales (about two-thirds of the total). Remains of the station is still visible. The island holds the shipwreck of a sealing vessel, the Protector III, which beached in 1969. Ownership From 1996 to 2020 the island was owned and run by The New Island Conservation Trust which acquired the freehold of the entire property in 2005. The Trust was managed by a Board of Trustees under the Chairmanship of Air Vice-Marshal David Crwys-Williams CB, a former Commander of the British Forces, Falkland Islands, in the 1980s. The major benefactor to the Trust has been the Geoffrey C Hughes Charitable Trust which not only made the purchase possible, but also funded the well-equipped Field Centre used as a base for teams of wildlife researchers from many different countries. In 2020 the Trust merged with Falklands Conservation, and the combined organisation now oversees and manages New Island for conservation and as a tourist destination. Wildlife The island is largely vegetated with grasses; there are no native trees, though shrubs have been introduced. Wildlife includes South American fur seals and southern sea lions. There are no native land mammals though the island contains a population of introduced cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus sp.). Resident pods of Peale's dolphins frequent the bays of New Island and Southern Elephant seals are occasionally found here but do not breed. Birds The New Island group has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA). Birds for which the site is of conservation significance include Falkland steamer ducks, ruddy-headed geese, gentoo penguins (ca. 6600 breeding pairs), southern rockhopper penguins (ca. 13,000 pairs), Magellanic penguins, black-browed albatrosses (ca. 29,000 pairs), thin-billed prions, white-chinned petrels, imperial shags, striated caracaras, white-bridled finches, blackish cinclodes and Cobb's wrens. It is also home to dolphin gulls, Falkland skuas, upland geese and long-tailed meadowlarks amongst other species. Citations and references Citations References Headland, R. K. (1989) Chronological List of Antarctic Expeditions