Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [471]
The NWHI are grouped into 10 island clusters, which contain atolls (low sandy islands formed on top of coral reefs) and some single-rock islands. From east to west, the clusters are Nihoa Island, Mokumanamana (Necker Island), French Frigate Shoals, Gardner Pinnacles, Maro Reef, Laysan Island, Lisianski Island, Pearl and Hermes Atoll, Midway Atoll and Kure Atoll. The total land area of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is just under 5 sq miles.
Human history on the islands extends back to the first Polynesian voyagers to arrive in Hawaii. In modern times, the most famous island has been, of course, Midway Atoll, which remains the only island open to visitors.
Today, the monument is being managed in a unique joint effort by three agencies: the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, and the Hawaii Department of Land & Natural Resources. However, the monument’s 15-year management plan, approved in December 2008, has already raised concerns among Native Hawaiian groups and the Sierra Club. The plan exempts from its regulations the US military (which conducts missile tests and Navy training within monument waters), and the plan allows for increasing visits to Midway and trips for scientific research – all of which could damage areas the monument is charged with preserving.
NIHOA & MOKUMANAMANA
Nihoa and Mokumanamana (Necker Island), the two islands closest to Kaua′i, were home to Native Hawaiians from around AD 1000 to 1700. Nearly 150 archaeological sites have been identified, including stone temple platforms, house sites, terraces, burial caves and carved stone images. Speculation is that about 175 people may have lived on Nihoa and traveled to the much smaller Mokumanamana for religious ceremonies.
That anyone could live at all on these rocks is remarkable. Nihoa is only 1 sq km in size, and Mokumanamana is one-sixth that size. Nihoa juts from the sea steeply, like a broken tooth, and is the tallest of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, with one peak reaching 903ft.
Two endemic land birds live on Nihoa. The Nihoa finch, which – like the Laysan finch – is a raider of other birds’ eggs, has a population of a few thousand. The gray Nihoa millerbird, related to the Old World warbler family, numbers between 300 and 700.
FRENCH FRIGATE SHOALS
With 67 acres of land surrounded by 230,000 acres of coral reef, the French Frigate Shoals contains the monument’s greatest variety of coral (over 41 species). It is also where most of Hawaii’s green sea turtles and Hawaiian monk seals come to nest. The reef forms a classic comma-shaped atoll on top of an eroded volcano, in the center of which the 135ft-tall La Perouse Pinnacle rises like a ship; this rock was named after the French explorer who was almost wrecked here in 1786. A small sand island, Tern Island is dominated by an airfield, which was built as a refueling stop during WWII. Today, Tern Island is a US Fish & Wildlife Service field station housing two full-time refuge managers and a few volunteers.
LAYSAN ISLAND
Not quite 1.5 sq miles, Laysan is the second-biggest of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The grassy island has the most bird species in the monument, and to see the huge flocks of Laysan albatross, shearwaters and curlews – plus the endemic Laysan duck chasing brine flies around the supersalty inland lake – you’d never know how close this island came to becoming a barren wasteland.
Beginning in the late 19th century, humans began frequenting Laysan to mine phosphate-rich guano – or bird droppings – to use as fertilizer; they also killed hundreds of thousands of albatross for their feathers (to adorn hats) and took eggs for albumen, a substance used in photo processing. Albatross lay just one egg a year, so an ‘egging’ sweep could destroy an entire year’s hatch. Traders built structures and brought pack mules and, oddly enough, pet rabbits.
The rabbits ran loose and multiplied (as is their wont), and within 20 years