McKean (Kiribati)

McKean
Map of McKean
Waters	Pacific Ocean
Archipelago	Phoenix Islands
Geographical location	3 ° 35 '42 "  S , 174 ° 7' 21"  W Coordinates: 3 ° 35 '42 "  S , 174 ° 7' 21"  W
length	1 km
surface	57 ha
Residents	uninhabited
Map of the Phoenix Islands, McKean to the west

McKean , old names: Dummond's Island, Arthur Island , is a small, uninhabited coral island that is isolated in the west of the Phoenix Islands in the Pacific Ocean and politically belongs to the island republic of Kiribati .

geography

McKean Island is about 400 kilometers south of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean . It is a teardrop-shaped, raised atoll less than a kilometer in diameter that rises only a few meters above the sea surface. The land area is 0.57 km² and is bordered by a dense fringing reef , which sometimes falls dry at low water levels. With the depression in the interior of the island, which is filled with mud, sand, brackish water and bird droppings, it is no longer possible to determine whether it is the rest of the original lagoon or a result of guano degradation. Another depression, a kind of shallow ditch about 150 meters long and a few meters wide on the north coast, parallel to the beach, could perhaps have been dug or widened by human hands.

Flora and fauna

Extensive guano mining in the second half of the 19th century completely changed the island's surface. Today's barren flora consists mainly of secondary vegetation, which suffers from the fact that rain falls only sparsely and irregularly. Another problem for plant growth is the salty spray spread over the flat island by the wind. There are only a few low or crawling growing species before, including the family of mallow belonging, dwarf growing shrub Sida fallax , the Meerportulak ( Sesuvium portulacastrum ), Tribulus cistoides and grasses lepturus lepens and Fimbristylis cymosa .

Since 1938 the island has been a protected area with restricted access due to its importance as a breeding area for sea birds. On McKean nest numerous species of birds in significant populations, including red-tailed tropic bird ( Phaethon rubricauda ), Masked Booby ( Sula dactylatra ), brown booby ( leucogaster Sula ), red-footed boobies ( Sula sula ), Sooty Tern ( Sterna fuscata ), frigate birds and some petrel species .

Asiatic house rats ( Rattus tanezumi ) were a plague for the ground-breeding seabirds . They probably came from a Korean ship that crashed in 2003, the wreck of which is still on the reef. In mid-2008 an expedition was carried out with the aim of restoring biodiversity. The rats were exterminated.

history

It is not known whether the island was inhabited in pre-European times. The sparse written documents of European explorers give no indication of this. Permanent settlement seems unlikely as the island is very small, natural resources are limited and freshwater sources are absent.

In 1985, the Australian Army's 2nd Field Survey Squadron set up several monitoring stations on the Phoenix Islands. During a reconnaissance flight to the rarely visited McKean Island on August 10, 1985, several previously unknown stone structures were discovered on the west coast. The age and function of the relics are so far unknown. The most conspicuous structure is located approx. 50 m from the beach and now consists of 2.10 m high walls. It is made of unprocessed limestone slabs without mortar and looks similar to the foundation walls of a 12.5 × 16 m rectangular house. There is a low and narrow entrance to the northeast of the ruin. However, the south-west side is completely missing, it may never have been built. In the case of several other, smaller and lower building remains, the (windward) southwest side is also missing.

Another complex measuring around 50 × 20 m, today consisting of walls less than a meter high, is even more puzzling. It comprises eleven adjoining rooms of irregular shape, only one of which has an entrance.

Two lines depicted with rubble lead in a V-shape to the beach and disappear into the sea. Their function is also unknown, possibly the remains of a fish trap . It is obvious that the buildings date from the time of phosphate exploitation, but it cannot be ruled out that they are evidence of pre-European settlement.

The island of McKean was discovered on May 28, 1794 by the British merchant captain Henry Barber for Europe, who was on his way from Australia to China with his Schnau Arthur . He called the low, apparently uninhabited island "Dummond's Island". The discovery was recorded on the 1798 Arrowsmith map as Arthur Island, after the name of Barber's ship.

From around 1820, the waters around the Phoenix Islands became a preferred hunting ground for whalers, mostly from Nantucket . It can therefore be assumed that McKean was sighted or visited by several whaling ships during this time.

The USS Vincennes of the United States Exploring Expedition, led by Charles Wilkes , visited the island on August 19, 1840. Wilkes had them measured and mapped and included a brief description in his report. He named it "McKean's Island" after the crew member who first saw it.

"It rises about 26 feet [approx. 8 m] above the sea surface and has no vegetation other than a sparse vegetation of coarse grass. "

- Charles Wilkes

The United States claimed ownership of the Guano Islands Act of 1856. The exploitation of the guano deposits - a valuable fertilizer and raw material for the production of explosives - was taken over by the Phoenix Guano Company, one of the numerous company foundations in the United States as a result of the Guano Islands Act. Activities began in 1858 with the dispatch of the schooner EL Frost under the command of Captain Thomas Long to explore several of the Phoenix Islands, including McKean. The guano cleardown began in summer 1859 with 29 workers from Hawaii . To transport the harvest away, a mole and wooden rails were built on the island, on which carts drawn by mules and horses ran. McKean's first cargo of 1200 tons of guano reached the east coast of the United States in January 1860, confirming the productivity of the guano reserves estimated at more than 100,000 tons. But mining was given up again in 1870.

In 1936, the sloop HMS Leith (U 36) belonging to the British Pacific Squadron ran at McKean Island and took possession of it for the United Kingdom , as did the rest of the Phoenix Islands . The Union Jack was hoisted and a deed of ownership was left in a sealed tin container. From then on, McKean belonged to the British crown colony of Gilbert and Ellice Islands and since 1979 to the independent Pacific island nation of Kiribati.

As has been suspected for a while, the missing pilot Amelia Earhart in the Pacific could have crashed in a failed emergency landing on McKean. However, the hypothesis turned out to be pure speculation. There is still no evidence of this.

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  A colony of ariel frigate birds on McKean

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  McKean coast with fairy tern in flight

Remarks

1. ↑ Barber was possibly of German descent and was in British service, the real name was probably Heinrich Barber

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dieter Mueller-Dombois, Raymond Fosberg: Vegetation of the Tropical Pacific Islands. New York 1998, pp. 318-323.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Phoenix Islands Protected Area: McKean Island ( memento of March 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved November 12, 2016.
3. ↑ B. Throssell & J. Specht: Stone Structures on McKean Island, Phoenix Island, Republic of Kiribati , in: Australian Archeology, No 29, December 1989, p. 17 ff.
4. ↑ Wilfried Schuhmacher: Henry Barber, Merchant, Captain of the Pacific, in: Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Richard Dauenhauer & Lydia T. Black: Russians in Tlingit America , Seattle 2008, p. 211
5. ^ Henry Evans Maude: Of islands and men: studies in Pacific history, Melbourne-New York 1968, pp. 109–110
6. ^ Henry Evans Maude : Post-Spanish Discoveries in the Central Pacific, In: The Journal of the Polynesian Society , Volume 70, No. 1 1961, pp. 104-105 ( online )
7. ^ Charles Wilkes: Narrative of the US Exploring Expedition , Volume 2, Philadelphia 1844, p. 131
8. ↑ Dan O'Donnell: The Pacific Guano Islands - The Stirring of American Empire in the Pacific Ocean, in: Pacific Studies, Vol. 16 (1) from March 1993, p. 55
9. ^ The Earth Project . The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery , archived from the original on September 3, 2011 ; accessed on September 22, 2019 (English, original website no longer available).  }

Web links

• Geographical and natural history information (Atoll English. )
• Historical maps and information (English)