An Avian Metropolis
Once-in-a-Lifetime Trip to Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Provides Lessons for Nicholas School Students About the Good and Bad Impacts of Human Activities p. 4
“It nearly broke my heart to see the amount of marine debris that washes up on the beach at Midway where it can end up in the stomachs of albatross chicks or entangled around a turtle’s neck,” says student Sarah Rider. The group spent parts of two days combing two of Midway’s most important nesting beaches, and netted an appalling haul of lighters, toothbrushes, glass and plastic bottles, shoes, toys, fishing nets and floats, discarded laundry baskets and an almost endless variety of pea-sized broken bits of plastic.
“It’s hard to believe that so much trash can wash up there,” Rider says. “No one lives anywhere near the Northwestern Islands. This trash had to be coming from thousands of miles away.”
The dangers posed by Sand Island’s non-native palm trees, brought to the island by early settlers, also made a lasting impression. The trees drop large numbers of coconuts and are sometimes uprooted entirely during powerful North Pacific storms that rake the island. Many nesting albatrosses are crushed every year by the falling dangers.
In her blog from Day Eleven of the trip, student Leah Medley recounted one such tragedy. “This morning,” she wrote, “two students found a tree that had recently fallen on some nests. Working with albatross volunteers, they removed the branches and were saddened to find a dead bird atop the nest.” To save the unborn chick, the students and volunteers built a new nest and deposited the egg in it, in hope that another albatross would “adopt” it as its own.
The day’s grim mood was lightened when students witnessed the hatching of an albatross egg they’d been nervously monitoring for three days. They joyfully christened the chick Moli—the native Hawaiian name for Laysan albatross.
“We noted several other chicks had hatched, too,” Medley wrote, “so it truly was a day filled with life and death.”
Future threats loom on the horizon. Sea-level rise, coral bleaching and other threats linked with global warming may add yet a new chapter to the life-and-death saga Moli and his fellow inhabitants of Midway face in coming years. The introduction of invasive species or new pathogens, hitching a ride in the crease of an unsuspecting visitor’s backpack or boot, is also a concern.
Later this year, small groups of ecotourists, guided by Fish and Wildlife Service managers, will be allowed to visit Midway Atoll for the first time in nearly five years. The decision to allow limited tourism to return to the atoll is a gamble, Read and his students say, but one they believe can succeed.
“Despite all the human impacts, Midway has proven to be amazingly resilient,” Read says. “That’s a testament not only to nature, but to the dedicated Fish and Wildlife Service personnel who juggle the challenge of protecting, and promoting, this remarkable place.”
Tim Lucas is the Nicholas School’s national media relations and marketing specialist.