Grytviken – A Toast to Shackleton and Wild

Just how many human inhabitants are there on South Georgia Island? I noted that no one lives on the west coast. During winter, about 12 people live on the east coast at the old whaling station of Grytviken. During summer, the number triples. They run the museum, gift shop, and post office (lots of activity during the summer months), study seals and penguins, monitor fisheries, and provide a British presence (the ownership of this island and the Falklands is still contested by the Argentinians). They also kill rats. Phase One of the South Georgia Heritage Trust’s rat eradication program has gone well.  Rats eat bird eggs, effectively eliminating the South Georgia Pipit, the only passerine bird here, from the mainland and relegating it to rat-free islands. Seabird populations are also greatly reduced due to rat predation on eggs and chicks. Without rats, there will be millions more birds here. A good thing. This is the largest rat eradication ever attempted. Skilled helicopter pilots fly straight lines (I haven’t mentioned the wind here yet but that blog is coming!) and spread cereal-like poison bait evenly over the non-ice land surfaces where rats live. Rats like the bait as much as I like (and miss!!) ice cream, bring it down to their burrows, eat it, and die there, limiting the secondary poisoning that might otherwise occur with Giant Petrels, Skuas, Sheathbills, or other scavengers eating dead poisoned rats.

For the first phase, they needed two months scheduled in order to secure seven days of flight time necessary to cover all of the transect lines. I think that sentence says a little something about the weather around here and how ridiculously lucky we’ve been so far to be able to make all of our planned landings. The eradication can be done in phases because glaciers at either end of the treatment area come right down to the ocean, forming a barrier. If every segment of bare land around Grytviken in the area bounded by glaciers to the north, south and west is baited, all of the rats will be eliminated. So far, so good. No sign of rats even with extensive tracking and searching on the ground by scientists. Next year, Phase Two. Following year, Phase Three. There is urgency to this procedure, not only to save as many birds as possible, but also to beat the glacial retreat. If the boundary glaciers for the next segments retreat, a passageway to a bait-free refuge would be opened, rendering the millions of dollars spent futile.

After hearing about wildlife conservation on board as customs cleared our ship, we landed in front of the graveyard. Sir Ernest Shackleton and Frank Wild are buried here. Shackleton died at Grytviken after suffering two heart attacks on his new expedition to Antarctica after World War I ended, aboard the Quest. He never made it to Antarctica but it seems fitting that he died on the island where he saved his life and the lives of all his men. Frank Wild, an even more experienced Antarctic explorer than Shackleton, was recently (in November 2011) interred in a gravesite next to his great friend, per his wishes. His remains were only recently found in a South African cemetery by his biographer. The Cheesemans have been doing these tours to South Georgia and Antarctica for 30 years. Their tradition is to toast Shackleton (and now Wild) with a shot of whiskey, leaving some to pour on his grave. I think it was an emotional moment for all of us.