Current view: Text account
Site description (2001 baseline):
Site location and context
This site covers a small group of islands and islets to the east of the northern tip of Grande Terre. The largest island, Île de Castries, is about 500 ha. The landscape of the islands is mostly flat, rising westwards to meet coastal cliffs. Access from the sea is virtually impossible because of the extensive banks of the seaweed
Macrocystis pyrifera which surround the islands. It is likely therefore that humans have never set foot on these islands.
See Box for key species. The only data available are from observations made offshore and so are inevitably incomplete. Five or six pairs of
Diomedea exulans breed (1989 data) as do unknown numbers of
Macronectes halli. It is possible that the site is of importance for several petrel species, while numbers of breeding
Phalacrocorax verrucosus exceed the threshold, but quantitative data are lacking.
Non-bird biodiversity: The flora is thought to be pristine. A large colony of the fur seal Arctocephalus gazella occurs. This population has probably never been exploited, which has enabled the recolonization of other sites from where the species had been exterminated.
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
The site is a French Antarctic National Park to which access is restricted. It has also been proposed as a Nature Reserve. Although the islands are naturally protected and seem never to have been visited by man, the risk of colonization by introduced species remains.
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Îles Leygues (French Southern Territories). Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/îles-leygues-iba-french-southern-territories on 23/12/2024.
