Macquarie Island was discovered by accident in 1810 when Frederick Hasselborough he was looking for hunting ground for seals. He then claimed the island belongs to Great Britain and annexed to the colony of New South Wales. The island is named after Lachlan Macquarie, the colonial governor who is sometimes regarded as the inventor of Australia. On the orders of Alexander I of Russia, Fabian von Bellingshausen explore the island on 28 November 1820 and designed the first map of Macquarie Island. There he exchanged rum and food with some local wildlife.
In 1890, New South Wales devolve power to the Macquarie Island and Tasmania who rented it to Joseph Hatch in 1902 to 1920. In the 1911 - 1915, a base and meteorological stations operating there for the benefit of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition. The island was designated a wildlife sanctuary in 1933. On December 26, 1947, the island is turning more power into the hands of Australia as part of Australian Antarctic Territory administration. The headquarters of the National Antarctic Research Expedition Australia (ANARE) was established on the island on May 25, 1948.
Macquarie Island - now included in the State of Tasmania - designated as a nature reserve in 1978 and in 1997 as a world heritage site.
On December 23, 2004, an earthquake of 8.1 on the Richter scale struck the island, but did not cause significant damage. The theory that the accident was the beginning of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was opposed by most of the seismological experts.
The only inhabitants of this island is ANARE members numbered 20-40 people living on a fixed base year.
Fauna of Macquarie Island is among the seals, penguins and rabbits. The island was declared free of feral cats in 2002.