|
Green Horse Society |
|
44°N 60°W |
|
|
| Waves |
| Visiting Sable |
| Bibliography |
| Archives |
|
|
| Media |
 |
Sable Island(August 2002) |
|
Click on thumbnails for more information |
|
 |
Sable Island is a sand bar - 42 km long and roughly 1.5 km wide - located far offshore, approximately 160 km southeast of Canso, Nova Scotia, the nearest landfall. The island has been the focus of human activities, imagination and speculation for roughly 500 years. Shipwrecks, wild horses, seabirds and seals, and inaccessibility have endowed this narrow wind-swept sliver of sand with a special mystique. The island is the subject of extensive scientific research and of numerous documentary films, books and magazine articles. |
|
Sable Island, with a surface area of about 3400 ha, has a topography comprised of beaches, sand dunes, inland fields of grass and heath, and freshwater ponds. The physiography of the island is the result of atmospheric and oceanic influences. The shape and position of the dunes reflect the prevailing westerly wind direction and storm trends. Ocean currents, waves, and tides modify the width and contour of the beaches and change the dimensions of east and west spits.
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Weather on Sable Island is not as harsh as is usually imagined. The island's climate is temperate oceanic and is generally milder than that of mainland Nova Scotia. Winter temperatures, normally between +5 and -5°C, rarely drop below -13°C Summer temperatures peak in August at 25°C. Prevailing winter winds are northwesterly and blowing 20 knots most days, and summer winds are southwesterly and lighter, blowing 10 knots. Sable Island is the windiest place in Nova Scotia, and has the least sunshine and the most fog.
Only a handful of people - mostly staff of the Sable Island Station - live and work on the island year-round. While the primary role of the station is collection of weather data and atmospheric research, the station also provides essential infrastructure and security for other human activities on the island. These include maintenance of aids to navigation, scientific research on flora and fauna, and support services for the offshore energy industry.
A variety of plants and animals are found on Sable Island. About 40% of the land surface area is vegetated. Over 175 plant species are found in several distinctive plant communities. These include the sandwort colonies of the east and west ends of the island; shrub-heath and cranberry communities dominated by crowberry, bayberry, wild rose, blueberry and cranberry; and richly vegetated freshwater pond and pond edge communities. In summer and autumn the island is cloaked with lush, green vegetation and wildflowers (including six species of orchid); in winter and early spring the dunes are rather bleak, grey and windswept, and appear deceptively devoid of vegetation. Except for one small pine surviving from a planting near the weather station some forty years ago, there are no trees on the island.
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Of the more than 600 invertebrates found on Sable Island, three moths, a beetle, a nematode and a freshwater sponge are endemic. Over 330 species of birds have been sighted on Sable. The island is home to a number of breeding bird species, and offers habitat for migrating shorebirds and waterfowl. The Ipswich Sparrow - a large and pale subspecies of the Savannah Sparrow - nests exclusively on the island. Nesting colonies of Arctic and Common Terns - all threatened and declining throughout most of their range - are numerous. Other nesting birds include Leach's Storm-petrels, Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, several species of shorebird and five species of duck.
Seals are common on the beach and in the surrounding waters. Two species, Harbour and Grey Seals, breed on Sable Island and are year-round residents. Also, during winter and early spring, several hundred juvenile Harp and Hooded Seals, and one or two Ringed Seals, come ashore for a few hours or days.
Possibly the most famous of the Sable Island wildlife are the horses, which are now (aside from the few human inhabitants), the only terrestrial mammals on the island. |
|
|