A friend of my daughter’s forwarded this to her, and she sent it on to me. I don’t know the original senders but I feel their account will interest Birding-aus. I hope that Penny and Dennis (the writers) won’t mind. Albatrosses, petrels and Laysan Teal all at risk. Good to know that people look after them.
Dear friends and family: Thanks for the calls and emails of concern. We had an hour last night to gather up a small bag of valuables, passports, food, water and sturdy shoes before heading up to the third floor of the concrete barracks, where all the island residents and visitors spent most of the night in the corridor—the safest place on the island. Midway experienced 4 waves, all small—the highest was 5 feet. Doesn’t sound like much, but when most of the island is below 12 feet, it wouldn’t have taken much more to be disastrous. Luckily the barrier reef offers a lot of protection. USFWS and Chugach are extremely well prepared: food, water, medical, generator, etc. all on high ground within an hour.
So we’re all OK, our colleagues at Kure Atoll and Laysan are also OK (they don’t have big solid buildings like ours) and today we are dealing with the aftermath. Unlikely that any buildings were damaged but we probably lost a lot of birds. The biggest concern is the condition of the runway, the boats, and our very rare, very valuable short-tailed albatross chick, who lives very close to the beach on Eastern Island. We’re prepared for a big day of damage assessment, but overall everything went very well here. Our hearts go out to those people in Japan who, despite the best prep in the world, no doubt suffered great losses.
Haven’t had time to read all your emails but hope this answers any questions. Again, thanks for all your thoughts and concerns. This is the highest wave they’ve had here in many years and we hope it won’t repeat for many more.
Penny and Dennis
then later on, part two.
Hi, everyone! We were all pretty exhausted this AM after a sleepless night. The waves washed across some narrow strips of the island, spreading debris on the runway ends and apparently causing some collapse at the west end. One beach washed away and the remaining steep banks are caving in. The dump is completely flooded with a horrific brew of salty water. Most albatross nests were not affected as they were on relatively high ground. We are thankful that the waves weren’t a few feet higher.
Where the water washed across the island, we spent the day rescuing as many albatross chicks as possible from a slow death in debris that buried them. Even some adults were buried in debris or trapped in naupaka trees, most severely injured or dead. Using just our hands, we dug out several hundred chicks that were alive, picked up a few hundred carcasses then tried digging out Bonin’s petrels trapped in their burrows. Most were dead but it was rewarding to dig out a burrow and suddenly have a bird pecking your hand. The gooney chicks looked pathetic, having been inundated, tumbled around and covered with dirt/debris. Sometimes you’d start pulling partially buried carcasses out of a tumbled mass and find one or two still alive. Their nests are completely gone and we hope that the adults (many of them out at sea feeding) will find them despite their displacement across the island. So many dead birds…..but it could have been far worse and the human population suffered no losses of property, etc.
Spit island was completely washed over but most of the albatross nests there had already been destroyed in an earlier storm. The worst destruction is on Eastern Island. The waves crossed it at several points. Our precious “golden gooney” chick somehow survived but 75% (10s of thousands) of the other albatross chicks are dead. The freshwater seeps were overrun with sea water and are now full of dead birds and fish. Since the seeps are vital for our rare Laysan teal, we’ll spend tomorrow fishing as many carcasses from them as possible and cleaning the seeps as much as we can. It’ll be a huge effort restoring habitat on Eastern Island, but maybe the saltwater killed most of the weeds!
We’re working hard to save what birds we can and keep our minds off what might have been. It’s difficult to imagine what the Japanese are contending with and the magnitude of the disaster. We are very fortunate…..
Cheers! DK and PK ===============================
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