Research Catalog

Title

Isles of refuge : wildlife and history of the northwestern Hawaiian Islands / Mark J. Rauzon.

Author

Rauzon, Mark J.

Publication

Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

205 p. : maps; 25 x 21 cm.

Summary

• "Nihoa, Necker, French Frigate Shoals, Gardner Pinnacles, Maro Reef, Laysan, Lisianski, Pearl and Hermes Atoll, Midway, Kure - the remote, uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands form a 1,100-mile arc across the middle of the North Pacific Ocean. Collectively known as the Leeward Islands, they rarely appear in tourist maps of Hawai'i and remain largely unknown (with the exception of Midway) to visitors and residents. Although they constitute a mere 1 percent of Hawai'i's land mass, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are home to a wide range of marine life that continues to thrive nowhere else in the state.
• Monk seals and green sea turtles, rare and threatened with extinction, can still be found lazing on the isolated beaches, which have been part of the U.S. government's wildlife refuge system since 1909. These islands harbor 90 percent of the entire archipelago's seabird population, and its vast rookeries are among the most important and diverse in the world."
• "Over the course of two decades, field biologist Mark Rauzon visited nine of the ten islands. In Isles of Refuge, the first book solely devoted to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Rauzon shares his extensive, first-hand knowledge of their natural history while providing an engaging narrative of his travels. Braving seasickness, bad weather, and biting bird ticks, he journeyed from Nihoa to Kure to study and photograph plants and animals for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: rare palms, sharks, turtles, seals, and thousands of birds - finches, terns, petrels, noddies, shearwaters, curlews, boobies, tropic-birds, ducks, and albatrosses, or "gooneys," famed throughout the Pacific for their flying prowess and bizarre breeding rituals."--Jacket.

Subjects

• History
• Hawaii > History
• Zoology > Hawaii

Genre/Form

History

Note

• "A Latitude 20 book."

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [191]-198).

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Fathoming the past -- Life on Nihoa -- Cromwell, do you copy? Over -- Moku Manamana -- Hōkūleʻa -- Return of the Iwi -- The coral kingdom of La Pérouse -- Tha Hawaiian monk seal -- The green sea turtle -- Albatross: lord of the wind -- The fabric of the sea -- Gardner Pinnacles -- Laysan Island -- Utter desolation -- The weed war and the cold war -- Lisianski Island -- Pearl and Hermes Reef -- Midway Atoll -- The Battle of Midway -- "Gooneys in the scavvies"-- Kure Atoll: dark side of the sun -- Recognition, restoration, and respect.

ISBN

• 0824822099 (cloth : alk. paper)
• 0824823303 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^^00029874^

OCLC

• 43672509
• SCSB-11881878

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library