Byers Peninsula

The Byers Peninsula sticks out at the western end of Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, part of the British Antarctic Territory.

This part of the island was visited by nineteenth-century sealers, of which evidence remains in the form of at least one stone hut on the peninsula.

The peninsula is named after James Byers, a New York shipowner, who tried unsuccessfully in August 1820 to induce the American Government to found a settlement in and take possession of the South Shetland Islands. Byers sent out a fleet of American sealers (the Jane Maria, Aurora, Charity, Henry and Sarah) to the islands in 1820-21 to be based first at Rugged Island and later in Yankee Harbour on Greenwich Island.

The peninsula was photographed from the air by the Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition in 1956-57 and surveyed from the ground by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1957-58.

The peninsula was designated SSSI No.6 under the Antarctic Treaty in 1975.

Location

• Location map: 62°37’59"S, 61°3’58"W

References

• Gazetteer and Map of The British Antarctic Territory: Byers Peninsula