Kerguelen Islands - History

History

The islands were discovered by the Breton-French navigator Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen de Trémarec on 12 February 1772. The next day Charles de Boisguehenneuc landed and claimed the island for the French crown.

Soon after their discovery, the archipelago was regularly visited by whalers and sealers (mostly British, American and Norwegian) who hunted the resident populations of whales and seals to the point of near extinction, including fur seals in the 18th century and elephant seals in the 19th century. Since the end of the whaling and sealing era, most of the islands' species have been able to increase their population again.

From 1825–1827, the British sealer John Nunn and three crew members were shipwrecked on Kerguelen.

In the past, a number of expeditions briefly visited the islands, including that of Captain James Cook in 1776. In 1874–1875, British, German and U.S. expeditions visited Kerguelen to observe the transit of Venus.

In 1877 the French started a coal mining operation; however, this was abandoned soon after.

The Kerguelen Islands, along with the islands of Amsterdam and St. Paul, and the Crozet archipelago were officially annexed by France in 1893, and were included as possessions in the French constitution in 1924 (in addition to that portion of Antarctica claimed by France and known as Adélie Land; as with all Antarctic territorial claims, France's possession on the continent is held in abeyance until a new international treaty is ratified that defines each claimant's rights and obligations).

The German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis called at Kerguelen during December 1940. During their stay the crew performed maintenance and replenished their water supplies. This ship's first fatality of the war occurred when a sailor, Bernhard Herrmann, fell while painting the funnel. He is buried in what is sometimes referred to as "the most southerly German war grave" of World War II.

Kerguelen has been continually occupied since 1950 by scientific research teams, with a population of 50 to 100 frequently present. There is also a French satellite tracking station.

Until 1955, the Kerguelen Islands were part of the French colony of Madagascar. That same year they collectively became known as Les Terres australes et antarctiques françaises (French Southern and Antarctic Lands) and were administratively part of the French Départment d`outre-mer de la Réunion. In 2004 they were permanently transformed into their own entity (keeping the same name) but having inherited another group of five very remote tropical islands, les îles Éparses, which are also owned by France and are dispersed widely throughout the southern Indian Ocean.