McKean Island
McKean Island is a small, uninhabited island in the Phoenix Islands, Republic of Kiribati. Its area is.
Kiribati declared the Phoenix Islands Protected Area in 2006, with the park being expanded in 2008. The 164,200-square-mile marine reserve contains eight coral atolls including McKean Island.
Flora and fauna
McKean's flora and fauna
McKean is roughly oval in shape, and less than one kilometre in diameter. It is ringed by a reef flat, with a beach ridge of coral rock and rubble surrounding the rim, rising to five metres above sea level. The centre of the island is depressed, with a shallow, hypersaline, guano-laced lagoon. Treeless, McKean harbours seven herbaceous species of plants, and the world's largest nesting population of lesser frigatebird with up to 85,000 birds. 29 other species of birds have been described as visiting the island. Historically, the only mammal was the Polynesian rat, now exterminated, which suggests pre-historic discovery by Polynesians. There is also a species of gecko that inhabits the island.McKean has no sources of fresh water, and no freshwater lens.
McKean's reefs
Sites on the reef averaged 20% Live Coral Cover, with higher abundance of algae as compared to Nikumaroro, coral rubble, and some coralline algae. As at Nikumaroro, branching and encrusting/submassive growth forms predominated, followed by massive corals. Only a small cover of Halimeda was observed while carpeting soft corals occupied 10% of the bottom of the lagoon.History
McKean Island was the first of the Phoenix group to be reported and named. It was discovered May 28, 1794, by the British Capt. Henry Barber, of the ship Arthur, while en route from Botany Bay, New South Wales to the northwest coast of America. Sighting the uninhabited island on 28 May, Captain Barber named it "Drummond's Island", plotting it at 3°40'S, 176°51'W. The Albany Sentinel reported that the "small sandy island...is very low and cannot be seen from the deck of a vessel more than five or six miles". It was later renamed 'Arthur Island' and appeared as such in charts of that time. Its coordinates were given as 3°30'S, 176°0'W.The island was reported and visited by a number of ships in the years following, including the whaleship Japan in 1830, Captain Worth who mistook it for Onotoa and an unknown whaleship in 1834, who named it "Wigram's Island".
It was renamed McKean Island and mapped by commander Charles Wilkes of the US Exploring Expedition on August 19, 1840, after a member of his crew. However, Arthur Island remained suspected and "in need of confirmation" until at least 1871, when it was listed in Findlay's Directory, using the charts of cartographer John Arrowsmith.
McKean was claimed by the U.S. in March 1859, under the American Guano Act of 1856. C.A. Williams promoted the Phoenix Guano Company of New London, Connecticut, to exploit the deposit of guano. Alfred Restieaux was foreman of the excavation operation in 1867. Guano was actively dug and exported from 1859 to 1870. The island was rarely visited after that time.
McKean was later included in the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony. The U.K. resigned its claims on the island when it granted independence to the Republic of Kiribati, and the U.S. resigned its claims to Kiribati in the Treaty of Tarawa.
Guano from McKean's Island
An 1859 article from The Sailor's Magazine reportsPhoenix guano
An 1860 report published by Connecticut State Agricultural Society saysDeclaration as a bird sanctuary
The island was declared a bird sanctuary in June 1938, and has been a protected area ever since as the McKean Island Wildlife Sanctuary.In addition to natural history expeditions, it was visited in October 1989 by TIGHAR when it was surveyed as a possible landing site of Amelia Earhart.
In 2008, Kiribati proclaimed it to be part of the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, the largest marine protected area in the world. In 2010, the Phoenix Islands Protected Area became the world's largest UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 2002 the fishing trawler Chance wrecked on McKean and released the Asian rats onto the island, which decimated the native populations of storm petrels, blue noddies, and other species of petrels and shearwaters. In 2008 NZAID funded the rat eradication of McKean Island, which in late 2009 was demonstrated to have been successful.