What was penguin oil used for

He sighted the island on 11 July during a sealing voyage out of Sydney. He may have been preceded by Polynesians or other earlier visitors. He recorded seeing a wreck 'of ancient design' on the island. At that time, fur seals were estimated to number between , and , on the island. The commercial reaction to his discovery was immediate. During the first 18 months of commercial operations, at least , fur seals were killed for their skins.

Only 10 years later, the population was almost wiped out. Once the fur seal population was unable to support the skin industry, the focus of commercial activity turned to the elephant seals. Elephant seal blubber contained oil that had widespread commercial use.

While not as valuable as seal oil, penguin oil at least had the advantage of being relatively easy to get. After the king penguin colony at Lusitania Bay was devastated by this activity, attention turned to the royal penguins at The Nuggets. At the peak of the industry in , the plant established here could process 2, penguins at one time. Each penguin produced about half a litre of oil. The Russian expedition led by Thaddeus von Bellinghausen, collected flora and fauna on the island in Auckland actor Stuart Devenie, who plays Hatch, said the play imitated one of Hatch's lectures.

Devenie is on very familiar terms with the character he plays, describing Hatch as "an irascible old bugger". Although what he's doing is appalling, his humanity appeals.

Devenie has played Hatch for five years and during that time has found himself in some interesting situations. Several audiences have become so worked up by Hatch's character that they started arguing with him. Their successors brought cats to eat the rodents and rabbits for food. Each in turn ran riot. Recently, a campaign to eradicate the cats has caused a rabbit boom. The rabbits have eaten so much grass that they are exposing penguin chicks to attack by skua birds. Their grazing has also triggered landslips, one of which partly buried a penguin colony in So, last year, Tasmanian scientists began eradicating rabbits.

The carnage continues. By Fred Pearce Whatever now? Image: John van den Hoff Penguin digesters on Macquarie Island — used for boiling the fat off king penguins Image: John van den Hoff The boiling of millions of penguins on a remote Antarctic island triggered one of the first international wildlife campaigns.