For the islet in the US Minor Outlying Islands, see Palmyra Atoll

Palmyra Atoll

Palmyra Atoll is an essentially unoccupied equatorial Northern Pacific atoll administered as an unorganized incorporated territory by the United States federal government...

.

Cooper Island is a small island, 2 miles (3 km) long, which lies at the north side of the entrance to Drygalski Fjord

Drygalski Fjord

Drygalski Fjord is a bay 1 mile wide which recedes northwest 7 miles , entered immediately north of Nattriss Head along the southeast coast of South Georgia.According to L...

, off the southeast end of South Georgia. It was discovered by a British expedition under James Cook

James Cook

Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...

 in 1775, and named for Lieutenant Robert Palliser Cooper, an officer aboard HMS Resolution.

A navigable channel, Cooper Sound, nearly 1 miles (1.6 km) wide, separates Cooper Island from the coast of the main island of South Georgia. There is a small bay

Bay

A bay is an area of water mostly surrounded by land. Bays generally have calmer waters than the surrounding sea, due to the surrounding land blocking some waves and often reducing winds. Bays also exist as an inlet in a lake or pond. A large bay may be called a gulf, a sea, a sound, or a bight...

, Cooper Bay, 1.3 miles (2 km) southwest of Cape Vahsel

Cape Vahsel

Cape Vahsel is a headland forming the eastern tip of South Georgia. It was roughly charted by Captain James Cook in 1775, remapped by the Second German Antarctic Expedition under Wilhelm Filchner, 1911–12, and named for Captain Richard Vahsel, master of the expedition ship Deutschland....

 on the mainland, and 1 miles (1.6 km) northwest of Cooper Island, indenting the southeast end of South Georgia, which derives its name from Cooper Island.

The island reaches 1365 feet (416 m) at its highest point, and the upper parts of the island are above the snow line.

Wildlife

As one of a handful of rat

Rat

Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...

-free islands, Cooper Island is South Georgia's only Special Protection Area

Special Protection Area

A Special Protection Area or SPA is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds.Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and certain particularly threatened birds.Together with Special...

, it has large numbers of sea birds including Snow Petrel

Snow Petrel

The Snow Petrel is the only member of the genus Pagodroma. It is one of only three birds that breed exclusively in Antarctica and has been seen at the South Pole. It has the most southerly breeding distribution of any bird.-Taxonomy:...

s, Antarctic Prion

Antarctic Prion

The Antarctic Prion, Pachyptila desolata, also known as the Dove Prion, or Totorore in Maori, is the largest of the prions, a genus of small petrels of the Southern Ocean.-Taxonomy:...

s, 12,000 pairs of Black-browed Albatross

Black-browed Albatross

The Black-browed Albatross or Black-browed Mollymawk, Thalassarche melanophrys, is a large seabird of the albatross family Diomedeidae, and it is the most widespread and common albatross.-Taxonomy:...

, Chinstrap Penguin

Chinstrap Penguin

The Chinstrap Penguin is a species of penguin which is found in the South Sandwich Islands, Antarctica, the South Orkneys, South Shetland, South Georgia, Bouvet Island and Balleny...

s and 20,000 Macaroni Penguin

Macaroni Penguin

The Macaroni Penguin is a species of penguin found from the Subantarctic to the Antarctic Peninsula. One of six species of crested penguin, it is very closely related to the Royal Penguin, and some authorities consider the two to be a single species...

s. There are also a number of fur seal

Fur seal

Fur seals are any of nine species of pinnipeds in the Otariidae family. One species, the northern fur seal inhabits the North Pacific, while seven species in the Arctocephalus genus are found primarily in the Southern hemisphere...

s and this is one of the few places where they were not hunted by humans.

The island is covered in tussock grass.

See also

• Composite Antarctic Gazetteer
• History of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
  History of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
  The history of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands is relatively recent. When European explorers found the islands, they were uninhabited, and their hostile climate, mountainous terrain, and remoteness made subsequent settlement difficult...
  
  
• List of Antarctic islands north of 60° S
• Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
  Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
  The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research is an interdisciplinary body of the International Council for Science . It was established in February 1958 to continue the international coordination of Antarctic scientific activities that had begun during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58...