Port Pegasus is located at the southern end of Stewart Island in New Zealand. From the 1890s to the 1950s, Port Pegasus was the site of a small fishing community. There was also a small tin-mining boom in the area in the 1890s. Today, there is no settlement at Port Pegasus, but the location is frequented by tourists, fishermen, hunters, and divers. In 1809, when William W. Stewart visited and mapped the island that was later named after him, he named the small bay "South Port". Later, it was renamed "Port Pegasus" to commemorate the Pegasus, Stewart's ship. The brigPegasus was the former Pegaso, captured at the Peruvian port of Trujillo on 28 July 1807 by the British frigate, commanded by Captain Charles James Johnston, during a cruise against Spanish shipping and ports along the coasts of Spanish America. Johnston dispatched the Pegaso to Port Jackson, where she arrived at the end of October. Submitted to the Court of Admiralty in Sydney, the Pegaso, was condemned as a prize on 24 January 1808 and sold off, renamed Pegasus. A few months later she was acquired by Thomas Moore and in May of that year she was made ready to go on the sealing trade to the southern part of New Zealand. This expedition took place between August 1808 and March 1809, when Pegasus was commanded by Captain Eber Bunker. Pegasus went on a second expedition under the command of Samuel Chase from Port Jackson to London by way of the sealing grounds in southern New Zealand from May 1809 to August 1810: William Stewart was first officer and made charts of the New Zealand coast, including Stewart Island, which was subsequently named after him. It appears to have been Jules de Blosseville who first applied the name Port Pegasus to South Port, on his 1824 Carte de la côte méridionale de l'île de Tawaï-Poénammou. In the title of Carte de la cote meridionale de l'lle de Tawai-Poenammou''... de Blosseville acknowledged the chart was drawn from original work by Captain Edwardson. At the end of the 1970s near the Tin Range the kakapo was re-discovered. Port Pegasus is only accessible by boat or by foot via an arduous hiking trail from Oban that was first marked out by Stewart Island ranger Roy Traill.
