Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge

Written on October 22nd
Day: 15 — Position: N20 59.3’ W168 22.8’
Odometer since Waikiki: about 595M
Distance to Northern Marianas: 2,626M
Water temperature: 81.9F - 27.7C

OCEAN ROWING RECORDS AS RUNNING TOTALS
Solo career total in days by Waikiki: 925 now 940 (New World Record)
Overall career total in days by Waikiki: 1,009 now 1,024 (New World Record)
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Solo career total in miles by Waikiki: 22,173M now about 22,768M
Overall career total in miles by Waikiki: 25,153M now about 25,748M
** Ralph Tuijn (NL) leads this with 35,635M

The numbers by the time I reached Waikiki are as recorded in the Ocean Rowing Society database. ORS will adjudicate the additional time and distance that I will have rowed to my point of landfall on mainland Asia then append those to my career totals.

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I am routing about halfway between the Johnston Atoll to my south and the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge just 200M to my north, so this information is timely, courtesy of Around-n- Over Chairman Bill Hinsley (http://www.around-n-over.org/team.htm).

On my last update, I suggested that the refuge was established just over a decade ago. My memory was fuzzy. The already existing refuge was expanded to become a National Monument in 2006 and further expanded in 2016. Please read along…

The Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge includes some of the most remote islands and atolls on the planet extending 1,200 miles northwest of the island of O‘ahu in the Hawaiian archipelago. This refuge hosts a rich, varied, and genetically unique natural, cultural, and historic legacy of global significance and importance.

“Health to The Ocean means health for us,” oceanographer and explorer Sylvia Earle has said. The Ocean covers almost three-quarters of Earth’s surface and contains about 97 percent of the planet’s water. The Ocean is home to an almost otherworldly array of rainbow-colored fish, exotic plants, large-winged seabirds, powerful marine mammals, living corals and vital microorganisms. We are just beginning to understand how those ocean creatures are interconnected with one another and with us. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is partnering with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, state and territorial governments and others to conserve The Ocean and remote islands and atolls in it. The two federal agencies cooperatively manage four marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean and one in the Atlantic. Earle has called the marine national monuments “hope spots” for ocean health.

The oldest refuge in the Pacific, Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge (forerunner of Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation created on February 3, 1909), represents some of the country’s earliest wildlife protection efforts. This Federal designation occurred quickly based on a turn of the century Smithsonian field report describing observations of piles of dead birds from feather harvesting activity.

One hundred years ago President Teddy Roosevelt set aside the reefs and islets of the Northwestern Hawaiian chain (except Midway Atoll) as the Hawaiian Islands Reservation. Later renamed the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, the site was established to provide legal protection for the millions of seabirds inhabiting the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands at a time in our past when seabirds were being slaughtered by the thousands for their plumage and eggs.

Described as hosting "Alaskan sized resources on a mere 245,000 acres," this Refuge provides essential breeding grounds and nesting sites for endangered, threatened, and rare species some found nowhere else on the planet. On June 15, 2006, the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, along with Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and Kure Atoll was designated as Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. In 2010, the Monument was inscribed as a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site and in 2016 the Monument was expanded to 582,578 square miles (1,508,870 km2), nearly the size of the Gulf of Mexico. The Monument is protected and managed by four co-trustees — the Department of Commerce, Department of Interior, and the State of Hawai‘i joined by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. 

CITATIONS

Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge: https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Hawaiian_Islands/

About the Refuge: https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Hawaiian_Islands/about.html