Why It Matters for Wildlife

BirdLife International designated Cochon and Kidney islands jointly as an Important Bird Area because of populations of Falkland steamer ducks, southern rockhopper penguins, Magellanic penguins, white-chinned petrels, sooty shearwaters, blackish cinclodes, and the endemic Cobb's wren. Both islands serve as haul-out sites for Southern Sea Lions, which rest in the tussac on the slopes.↗↗

The islands' value is amplified by what they lack: rats and mice have never become established here, allowing ground-nesting seabirds to thrive in conditions long lost on the grazed outer islands. The management plan identifies four globally threatened species that breed somewhere across the four Stanley tussac islands — the Macaroni penguin, white-chinned petrel, Cobb's wren, and southern rockhopper penguin.↗↗

Protection and Access Policy

The Falkland Islands Government's Stanley Tussac Grass Islands Management Plan (2018–2023) governs Kidney, Cochon, Top and Bottom islands as a single conservation unit. While Kidney Island welcomes guided day tours from Stanley and recreational visitors with a permit, Cochon Island is explicitly reserved for research and conservation work only. There are no visitor facilities, landing points, or trails — the island's value lies precisely in being left undisturbed.↗

Key threats to the group include the risk of oil spills from fishing vessels that use Berkeley Sound as an anchorage and transhipment point, as well as the potential introduction of invasive species by any landing party. Biosecurity measures — including footbaths and equipment checks — are in force for all permitted visitors to the islands.↗↗

Seeing Cochon from the Water

For most travellers, Cochon Island is best appreciated from the sea. The 30-minute boat crossing from Stanley to Kidney Island passes close enough to glimpse the rocky ridges and tussac-covered slopes of its smaller neighbour. In summer, occasional evening cruises around the Kidney Island group offer views of seabirds returning to their burrows — a spectacle that takes in both islands and the surrounding cliffs.↗↗

On land, a visit to the Falklands Conservation office in Stanley's Ross Road provides interpretive materials about the tussac islands and their wildlife, offering context for the landscape visible from Port William's shore.↗

The Bigger Picture

Cochon Island is part of a story larger than itself. Across the Falkland archipelago, once-tussac-covered islands were devastated by grazing and invasive rodents over two centuries of human settlement. The survival of this tiny, inaccessible islet — still blanketed in mature tussac, still free of predators — represents what the entire island group might once have been. Its conservation is inseparable from the health of the wider marine ecosystem of Berkeley Sound and Port William.↗↗