Midway to Midway: Navy Saves Nature

By Bill Doughty

At the turn of the last century the U.S Navy responded to end cruel and greedy destruction at a remote island in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. 

Layson albatross eggs are harvested at Layson Island in early 1900s.

William T. Hornaday, an American zoologist, recounts the incident in his 1913 book "Our Vanishing Wild Life" about the devastation of hundreds of thousands of Laysan albatross birds.

An excerpt is published in "American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau" (Library of America, Penguin Putnam Inc., 2008), edited by Bill McKibben.

The incident at Laysan Island occurred just six years after President Theodore Roosevelt sent United States Marines to Midway Atoll to stop the slaughter of seabirds for their feathers and eggs.

Hornaday writes:

"Ever since 1891 the bird life on Laysan has been regarded as one of the wonders of the bird world. One of the photographs taken prior to 1909 shows a vast plain, apparently a square mile in area, covered and crowded with Laysan albatrosses. They stand there on the level sand, serene, bulky and immaculate. Thousands of birds appear in one view – a very remarkable sight."

Laysan Island was known to the whalers who hunted and butchered the huge mammals of the sea for their oil. In the spring of 1909 businessman Max Schlemmer of Honolulu targeted the island for its birds and their byproducts: guano for fertilizer, eggs for food, and the birds themselves for their feathers. He surreptitiously sailed there with 23 Japanese laborers to kill thousands of birds, according to Hornaday.



"For several months they slaughtered diligently and without mercy," Hornaday writes. They clubbed and cut the wings off the large birds, with an apparent goal to ship the wings to Japan and France where the feathers could be used in the fashion industry.

But a college professor of zoology in Honolulu heard about Schlemmer's venture and "promptly wired the United States Government."

"Without the loss of a moment the Secretary of the Navy despatched the revenue cutter Thetis to the shambles of Laysan. When Captain Jacobs arrived he found that in round numbers about three hundred thousand birds had been destroyed, and all that remained of them were several acres of bones and dead bodies, and about three (railroad) carloads of wings, feathers and skins. It was evident that Schlemmer's intention was to kill all the birds on the island, and only the timely arrival of the Thetis frustrated that bloody plan."

It wasn't the only time the Navy came to help the island, repairing the damage to nature caused by the greedy Schlemmer.

Schlemmer not only slaughtered birds, but also destroyed the ecology by purposely introduced rabbits and guinea-pigs as a way to start a meat canning business. But the rodents reproduced rapidly and consumed most of the plant life on the island, changing the habitat for generations. Aboard minesweeper USS Tanager (AM-5) the Navy made five surveys of Laysan Island in 1923 and 1924 with the Bureau of Biological Survey and the Bishop Museum in eradicating the rodents and studying plant and animal life. 

The scientists who were part of the Tanager Expedition documented the extinction of the Laysan honeycreeper and witnessed, firsthand, the devastation of the island by nature itself, in the form of severe tropical storms.

Laysan Island is about two thirds of the way up the archipelago from Kauai to Midway.

When I visited Midway Atoll in 2007 for the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Midway, Laysan albatrosses sat everywhere. At several points, while on a tour of the island by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rangers, we had to stop to gently move the huge birds out of the way of our electric carts. I had the great good luck of being allowed to carry one of the birds out of harm's way.

Laysan albatrosses are graceful flyers but clumsy landers. Their chicks are fuzzy and gray, while the adults are slick white and black with shades of gray and Amy Winehouse eyes.

In recent years the regal birds, some with a wingspan of six to seven feet, returned to the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, where they became a hazard to themselves and pilots at the Navy's sprawling testing and training range.

Working with the Pacific Rim Conservation group, the Navy translocated eggs to the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge on Oahu, where chicks were hatched and raised. Laysan albatross adults are programmed by nature to return to their place of birth after spending the first few years of their adult life at sea. The return last month of the first PMRF-translocated bird, called V106, is a sign of success for the project.

Laysan albatross egg at Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai (Photo by MC2 Omar-Kareem Powell.

Last week the Chief of Naval Operations announced that PMRF is one of  the 2017 CNO Environmental Award winners for "Natural Resources Conservation, Small Installation."

A new children's book captures the beauty and majesty of the Albatross, "A Perfect Day for an Albatross" by Caren Lowebel-Fried (Cornell Lab Publishing Group, 2017).

Artist and author Lowebel-Fried illustrates her book with woodblock prints. She tells a story from the perspective of a bird born at Midway.

Her description of life at sea takes the young reader along for the flight:

"Not far from here, when I grew old enough to fly for the first time, I looked at the ocean and spread my wings. I ran and felt the wind beneath my wings lifting me up and up. Suddenly I was no longer over the land! The rolling, splashing wet sea was beneath me! I learned to land on the ocean, catch squid and find flying fish eggs to eat, then run across the surface of the sea and take to the sky again. I explored for years, traveling across the ocean, the smells and signals from the sea telling me where to find food."

Lowebel-Fried's albatross returns to Midway, finds a mate, and does the artful dancing, preening and beak sparring that is a joy to see. Cornell Lab offers a behind-the-scenes video of Lowebel-Fried's visit to Midway Atoll.

The book ends with a glossary, geography lesson and tips on where to see a Laysan albatross, such as at the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on Kauai and at the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge on Oahu. Also included: tips on how to protect the birds, such as "Reuse or recycle plastics to keep them out of the ocean," something the Navy does at sea every day.

One of the artist's amazing woodblock prints not included in this book features a cool mix of natural and Navy images from Midway Atoll, along with a voyaging canoe.

In "Our Vanishing Wild Life," Hornaday notes, "In February, 1909, President (Theodore) Roosevelt issued an executive order creating the Hawaiian Islands Reservation for Birds."

Today, according to Papahanaumokuakea.gov, "Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument is the largest contiguous fully protected conservation area under the U.S. flag, and one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world. It encompasses 582,578 square miles of the Pacific Ocean (1,508,870 square kilometers) – an area larger than all the country's national parks combined."

The eclectic "American Earth" compilation includes works by Lewis Thomas, Alice Walker, E. O. Wilson, John Muir, Joni Mitchell, Rachel Carson, R. Crumb, Walt Whitman, Al Gore, Marvin Gaye, Philip K. Dick, E. B. White, and Henry David Thoreau.