|Central coordinates||57o 27.59' West 64o 31.35' South|
|Altitude||0 - 200m|
|Year of IBA assessment||2015|
Site description Snow Hill Island lies 5 km to the southeast of James Ross Island and less than 2 km to the southwest of Seymour Island, off the eastern coast of Trinity Peninsula. Snow Hill Island is nearly entirely covered by snow and ice. The IBA is located at the southwest extremity of the island and comprises 263 ha of sea ice adjacent to the coast of Snow Hill Island.
The nearest permanent scientific station is Marambio (Argentina), which operates year-round ~53 km to the northeast on Seymour Island and has capacity for ~150 people (COMNAP, Antarctic Facilities, accessed 19/08/2010).
Key Biodiversity Between 4000 – 4200 pairs Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) were reported breeding on fast ice ~400 m from ice cliffs on the southern coast of Snow Hill Island in November 2004 (Todd et al. 2004). This site is one of only two Emperor Penguin breeding colonies on land in the Antarctic Peninsula region, the other being Dion Islands, Marguerite Bay.
Non-bird biodiversity: None known.
|Species||Season||Period||Population estimate||Quality of estimate||IBA Criteria||IUCN Category|
|Emperor Penguin Aptenodytes forsteri||breeding||2004||3,885 individuals||medium||A4ii||Near Threatened|
Protection status None
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Recommended citation BirdLife International (2016) Important Bird and Biodiversity Area factsheet: Snow Hill Island. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 02/07/2016
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