Island Conservation
Island Conservation’s Conservation Biologist Dena Spatz shares her observations from the field on Palmyra Atoll, U.S. Pacific Territory. I am 1,000 miles southwest of Hawaii and over 3,000 miles to the closest continent. I fall asleep to the squeaks of Brown Noddy and White Tern chicks and I wake up to the blow of the trade […]
Five years after the removal of invasive rats, conservationists return to Palmyra Atoll. Almost three weeks have passed since our team of five conservationists arrived on Palmyra Atoll. This tropical atoll, one of the Line Islands 1,000 miles south of Hawaii, was once overrun with invasive rats. Thankfully for us and the rest of the walking, […]
Demobilizing Antipodes Island – a bittersweet end to an incredible work adventure. It has been 68 days since Jason Zito and I left the South Island of New Zealand bound for Antipodes Island to participate in the Million Dollar Mouse campaign to rid the island of damaging invasive mice. Maybe 68 days seems quite long, especially […]
The Million Dollar Mouse team is monitoring Antipodes Island’s native birds to compare population sizes before and after removal of invasive mice. One way to measure the effects of conservation fieldwork is to track the wildlife expected to benefit from restoration. On Antipodes Island, restoration specialists with the Million Dollar Mouse project banded native Pipits and Albatross chicks, […]
How do you know what day it is on Antipodes Island? If it’s pizza night, it must be Friday. Long weeks of hard work in the field on a subantarctic island call for a special treat to kick off the weekend, and Million Dollar Mouse chef Pete Kirkman makes the best pizza Antipodes Island has ever seen. […]
Conservation fieldwork on explosive-ridden, ecologically and culturally rich Kaho’olawe Island is as rewarding as it is challenging. Everyone in Hawaii knows Kaho’olawe Island is littered with unexploded ordnance (a.k.a. bombs). For anybody who doesn’t know, the island was used as a bombing test site by the U.S. military from 1941-1990. But leftover ordnance is not the only problem […]
