Māori named the island "Taukihepa" and Europeans, who arrived later, called it "Big South Cape".

The island was given dual names in 1998 as part of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement with Ngāi Tahu.

The island rises to a height of 235 metres (771 ft) at its centre, and numerous small streams run to the coast.

In March 1964, muttonbirders arrived to find the island had been devastated by the effect of rats that were causing one of New Zealand's greatest ecological disasters of the twentieth century.

[3] Previously free of mammalian predators, the ecology of the island was devastated in a matter of years and many endemic species of bird (some flightless) were driven to extinction.