Hawaii Chronicles III: World War Two in Hawaii from the Pages of Paradise of the Pacific

War and the Birds of Midway

War and the Birds of Midway HARVEY I. FISHER AND PAUL BALDWIN E The leeward islands of the Hawaiian Chain are world renowned for their breeding colonies of tropical seabirds. Some of these seabirds breed in only a few other places in the world. Laysan and Midway are also widely known as the home of the Laysan Rail and the Laysan Finch. These latter species live, or lived, only on the most westward islands of Hawaii. Certain of these westward islands have been used extensively in the prosecution of the war, and rumors indicated that some of the birds were being ruinously decimated. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Territorial Board of Agriculture and Forestry sent us to Midway to determine the fate of the Laysan Rail and the Laysan Finch and to make a survey of all the birds. Our census figures (Table 1) offer some interesting and some disturbing food for thought.Why are some species such as the Christmas Island Shearwater, the Bonin Island Petrel, Bulwer’s Petrel, Redfooted Booby, and Gray-backed Tern now limited to one of the two main islets making up Midway Atoll? Before the war they occurred on both. Unfortunately time was not available to study this problem. Three species have been completely wiped out on Midway in the last four years—the Laysan Rail, the Laysan Finch, and the Brown Booby. Extinction of the rail on Midway probably means complete extinction of the species. Eastern Island of Midway was probably the last home of the rail, as E. L. Caum and Sgt. Lewis Walker, USMC, saw two there in July, 1944.The last rail observed on Sand Island was seen by men of the cable company in November, 1943. The main factor in the extermination of the rail was the over-running of both islets by rats that escaped to Midway from ships in 1943. The present status of the Laysan Finch is incompletely known. It is gone from Midway, but may still occur on Laysan (the only other known habitat for it), where Coultas reported “at least 1,000” present 319 First published January 1946. in 1936. Hadden (Hawaiian Planters’ Record, XLV (3):194) condemns the finch and states that it should be outlawed and destroyed at every opportunity. It is unfortunate that such an attitude ever existed on Midway. In all probability the rat and man are factors responsible for its extermination. No individuals of the Brown Booby were seen on either island. In 1941, Hadden (op. cit., p. 27) reported that this was the most common of the three species of boobies at Midway. Utilization of its colonial nesting areas for military purposes and, perhaps, the rat infestation are the factors involved in its elimination from Midway. Its loss on this one atoll is, however, unimportant compared with the loss of the rail and the finch, for this booby breeds throughout the western and central tropical Pacific area. Other species now exist there in relatively few numbers. We saw only three Blue-faced Boobies. Consequently, for all practical purHawai ‘i Chronicles 320 TABLE 1 Sand Island Eastern Island Black-footed Albatross 36,000 18,000 Laysan Albatross 75,000 35,000 Wedge-tailed Shearwater 40,000 22,000 Christmas Island Shearwater 0 400 Bonin Island Petrel 25,000 0 Bulwer’s Petrel 0 600 Red-tailed Tropic Bird 10,000 9,000 Blue-faced Booby 3 0 Red-footed Booby 0 450 Frigate Bird 60* 60* Chinese Pheasant 2 or 3 0 Pacific Golden Plover 150 100 Bristle-thighed Curlew 12 8 Ruddy Turnstone 250 100 Gray-backed Tern 0 750 Sooty Tern 170,000 4,000 Noddy 0? 10 Hawaiian Black Noddy 1,350 750 Fairy Tern 15,000 5,000 Domestic Pigeon 50 0 Unidentified Dove 2? 0 Domestic Canary 30 0 * same birds on both islands. poses they may be considered extinct on Midway. This species breeds in the same general area as the Brown Booby and thus is in no apparent danger of extinction. Despite careful observation we saw so few Noddy Terns that we thought the total number present did not exceed ten! It is questionable whether the Noddy was ever abundant at Midway.The extremely small number seen by us indicates either that this species is nearing elimination from this atoll or that the main body of birds was not present at the breeding grounds when we...