Chapter I Intro & Objectives - SPREP

PHOENIX ISLANDS PROTECTED AREA MANAGEMENT PLAN
Chapter III. Background, 3. Terrestrial Resources
Draft 1 March 2007
Sibley and Clapp (1967) reported that earlier records of great frigatebirds on Rawaki
(Phoenix) by Lister (1891) were actually descriptions of lesser frigatebirds.
Maude (1937) noted that the bird populations on Rawaki (Phoenix) were the highest of all the
Phoenix Islands.
Bryan (1941 and 1942) noted that sea birds were very abundant. These included sotty, gray,
and white terns, frigates that nested in the Sesuvium, four species of shearwaters, petrels,
boobies, and migratory plover and curlews.
Luke (1945) reported that bird populations were in the millions.
Anon. (1953) reported that rabbits shared burrows with petrels and shearwaters (see also
Bryan 1941).
Child (1960) reported the blue-grey noddy (Bennett’s noddy; blue-grey fairy ternlet),
Procelsterna cerulea nebouxi, on Abariringa (Canton), McKean, Rawaki (Phoenix), Manra
(Sydney), and Birnie.
Child (1960) reported that the blue-fced booby (masked gannet), Sula dactylatra personata,
were present in small numbers on Abariringa (Canton), McKean, Nikumaroro (Gardner),
Rawaki (Phoenix), and Manra (Sydney).
The only nesting place for the lesser frigate-bird, Fregata ariel ariel, was on Rawaki
(Phoenix Island) according to Child (1960).
The red-tailed tropic-bird, Phaethon rubricauda melanorhynchos, had breeding colonies on
Nikumaroro (Gardner), Orona (Hull), Rawaki (Phoenix), McKean, Manra (Sydney),
Abariringa (Canton) (Child 1960).
The Christmas Island shearwater, Puffinus nativitatis, bred on Abariringa (Canton) and
Rawaki (Phoenix) (Child 1960).
The Phoenix petrel, Pterodroma alba, had breeding colonies on Abariringa (Canton) and
Rawaki (Phoenix) and possibly Nikumaroro (Gardner) (Child 1960).
The Phoenix petrel, Pterodroma alba, had breeding colonies on Abariringa (Canton) and
Rawaki (Phoenix) (Child 1960).
Anon. (1965) reported that lesser frigatebirds banned in Rawaki (Phoenix) were found in
Japan, Gilbert Islands, Taiwan, New Guinea, and Western Samoa.
In 1963 and 1964, 13,027 nestlings and 146 adult lesser frigatebirds were banded on
Howland, McKean, Rawaki (Phoenix), and Enderbury (Sibley and Clapp 1967). A summary
of band recover is presented in Figure III-3.3 above.
Kohls (1966) reported that the tick, Ixodes amersoni, was described from a white tern, Gygis
alba) at Rawaki (Phoenix) in 1965 (see also Amerson 1968). Additional tick specimens were
collected from white terns on Rawaki (Phoenix) in 1966 (Amerson 1968).
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