Starbuck Island (or Volunteer Island) is an uninhabited coral island in the central Pacific, and is part of the Central Line Islands of Kiribati. Its former names include "Barren Island", "Coral Queen Island", "Hero Island", "Low Island", and "Starve Island".
Located at 5°38′30″S155°52′40″W / 5.64167°S 155.87778°W , just east from the geographic center of the Pacific Ocean ( 4°58′S158°45′W / 4.97°S 158.75°W ), [1] and measuring 8.9 kilometres (5.5 miles) east-to-west and 3.5 kilometres (2.2 miles) north-to-south, Starbuck Island has a land area of 1,620 hectares (4,003 acres). [2] It is a low, dry, coral limestone island with a steep beach backed by a 6–8-metre-high (20–26 ft) bank composed of large coral fragments. Several hypersaline lagoons form on the island's eastern side. These occasionally dry up, and are said to be dangerous to approach: one worker during the island's guano-mining days sank up to his neck in salty mud before being rescued. [3]
There is no freshwater on the island, which is one of the drier atolls in the Line Island group. Annual yearly rainfall averages approximately 800 mm (31.5 in). [2]
Little vegetation exists on Starbuck; stunted Sida fallax scrub and low herbs and grasses predominate, along with a few Cordia subcordata bushes and bunch grass. Photos have shown a few palm trees growing near the center of the island. [4]
The island boasts a large colony of sooty terns, estimated at 1.5 million pairs, together with Polynesian rats, feral cats, green turtles, and around fifteen other species of seabirds. [2] Other accounts estimate the sooty tern population to be as high as three to six million birds. [5]
James Henderson, merchant captain of the East India Company ship Hercules, sighted the island in 1819 while sailing from South America to Calcutta, India. Soon after his arrival a local newspaper, The Calcutta Journal (or Political, Commercial, and Literary Gazette), published Henderson's report of three islands which he had encountered during his voyage, but did not state the exact date for his sighting of modern Starbuck Island. Henry Evans Maude estimated that this may have been in early February 1819. The next captain known to have seen it was Obed Starbuck, captain of the whaler Hero out of Nantucket, on September 5, 1823. [6]
The island was sighted again on December 12, 1823 by Obed's first cousin, Valentine Starbuck, the American-born master of the British whaling ship L'Aigle. L'Aigle was carrying King Kamehameha II of Hawaii and Queen Kamāmalu and their retinue to England. Valentine Starbuck is the first non-Pacific Islander known to have set foot on the island. [7]
The island was finally charted in 1825 by Captain The 7th Lord Byron (a cousin of the famous poet). Byron, commanding the British warship HMS Blonde, was returning to London from a special mission to Honolulu to repatriate the remains of the Hawaiian royal couple, King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamāmalu, who had died of measles while trying to visit King George IV. Lord Byron also sighted and charted Mauke and Malden Island, which he named after his surveying officer. [8]
Starbuck Island was claimed by the United States under the 1856 Guano Islands Act, but was controlled by Britain after 1866, when possession was taken by Commodore Swinburn of HMS Mutine. The island was mined for phosphate between 1870 and 1893. It formed part of the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony prior to the independence of Kiribati in 1979. American claims to the atoll were formally vacated in the Treaty of Tarawa, signed the same year. [9]
At its highest point, the island rises to only about 5 meters. Due to its low profile and dangerous surrounding reefs, a number of ships were wrecked at Starbuck Island in the late 19th century. The French transport Euryale wrecked there in March 1870 and the crew was marooned on the atoll for 35 days. The experience allowed the captain of Euryale, future contre-admiral Albert Des Portes, to finally chart the correct geographical location of the island. All members of the crew were eventually rescued and returned to France.
On August 7, 1896 the Norwegian ship Seladon was wrecked against the barrier. The crew went into the lifeboats and drifted for 30 days until they landed on the island of Niulakita, Tuvalu. They lived together with a few natives for 10 months until they were rescued by a passing ship. [10]
Starbuck Island has been designated as the Starbuck Island Wildlife Sanctuary. [11] In 2014 the Kiribati government established a 12-nautical-mile fishing exclusion zone around each of the southern Line Islands: Caroline (commonly called Millennium), Flint, Vostok, Malden, and Starbuck. [12]
Baker Island, formerly known as New Nantucket, is an uninhabited atoll just north of the Equator in the central Pacific Ocean about 3,090 km (1,920 mi) southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbor is Howland Island, 42 mi (68 km) to the north-northwest; both have been claimed as territories of the United States since 1857, though the United Kingdom considered them part of the British Empire between 1897 and 1936.
Jarvis Island is an uninhabited 4.5 km2 (1.7 sq mi) coral island located in the South Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and the Cook Islands. It is an unincorporated, unorganized territory of the United States, administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Interior as part of the National Wildlife Refuge system. Unlike most coral atolls, the lagoon on Jarvis is wholly dry.
The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands are a chain of 11 atolls and coral islands in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawaiian Islands. Eight of the atolls are parts of Kiribati. The remaining three—Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra Atoll—are territories of the United States grouped with the United States Minor Outlying Islands. The Line Islands, all of which were formed by volcanic activity, are one of the longest island chains in the world, stretching 2,350 km (1,460 mi) from northwest to southeast. One of them, Starbuck Island, is near the geographic center of the Pacific Ocean. Another, Kiritimati, has the largest land area of any atoll in the world. Only Kiritimati, Tabuaeran, and Teraina have a permanent population. Besides the 11 confirmed atolls and islands, Filippo Reef is shown on some maps, but its existence is doubted.
Malden Island, sometimes called Independence Island in the 19th century, is a low, arid, uninhabited atoll in the central Pacific Ocean, about 39 km2 (15 sq mi) in area. It is one of the Line Islands belonging to the Republic of Kiribati. The lagoon is entirely enclosed by land, though it is connected to the sea by underground channels, and is quite salty.
Kure Atoll or Ocean Island is an atoll in the Pacific Ocean 48 nautical miles west-northwest of Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands at 28°25′N178°20′W. A coral ring six miles across encloses a lagoon several meters deep. The only land of significant size is called Green Island and is a habitat for hundreds of thousands of seabirds. A short, unused and unmaintained runway and a portion of one building, both from a former United States Coast Guard LORAN station, are located on the island. Politically, it is part of Hawaii, although separated from the rest of the state by Midway, which is a separate unorganized territory. Green Island, in addition to being the nesting grounds for tens of thousands of seabirds, has recorded several vagrant terrestrial birds, including snow bunting, eyebrowed thrush, brambling, olive-backed pipit, black kite, Steller's sea eagle and Chinese sparrowhawk. It is currently managed as a Wildlife Bird Sanctuary by the State of Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resource–Division of Forestry and Wildlife as one of the co-trustees of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument with support from the Kure Atoll Conservancy.
Tabuaeran, also known as Fanning Island, is an atoll that is part of the Line Islands of the central Pacific Ocean and part of Kiribati. The land area is 33.73 square kilometres, and the population in 2015 was 2,315. The maximum elevation is about 3 m (10 ft) above high tide.
Kamehameha II was the second king of the Kingdom of Hawaii. His birth name was Liholiho and full name was Kalaninui kua Liholiho i ke kapu ʻIolani. It was lengthened to Kalani Kaleiʻaimoku o Kaiwikapu o Laʻamea i Kauikawekiu Ahilapalapa Kealiʻi Kauinamoku o Kahekili Kalaninui i Mamao ʻIolani i Ka Liholiho when he took the throne.
The Phoenix Islands, or Rawaki, are a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs that lie east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, north of Samoa. They are part of the Republic of Kiribati. Their combined land area is 28 square kilometres (11 sq mi). The only island of any commercial importance is Canton Island. The other islands are Enderbury, Rawaki, Manra, Birnie, McKean, Nikumaroro, and Orona.
Niulakita is the southernmost island of Tuvalu, and also the name of the only village on this island. Niulakita has a population of 34. The residents of Niulakita have moved to the island from Niutao. Niulakita is represented in the Parliament of Tuvalu by the members of the constituency of Niutao.
Vostok Island is an uninhabited coral island in the central Pacific Ocean, part of the Line Islands belonging to Kiribati. Other names for the island include Anne Island, Bostock Island, Leavitts Island, Reaper Island, Wostock Island or Wostok Island. The island was first sighted in 1820 by the Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, who named the island for his ship Vostok.
Caroline Island is the easternmost of several uninhabited coral atolls comprising the southern Line Islands in the central Pacific Ocean nation of Kiribati.
Ducie Island is an uninhabited atoll in the Pitcairn Islands. It lies east of Pitcairn Island, and east of Henderson Island, and has a total area of 1.5 square miles (3.9 km2), which includes the lagoon. It is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long, measured northeast to southwest, and about 1 mile (1.6 km) wide. The island is composed of four islets: Acadia, Pandora, Westward and Edwards.
Enderbury Island, also known as Ederbury Island or Guano Island, is a small, uninhabited atoll 63 km ESE of Kanton Island in the Pacific Ocean at 3°08′S171°05′W. It is about 1 mile (1.6 km) wide and 3 miles (4.8 km) long, with a reef stretching out 60–200 metres. Forming a part of the Canton and Enderbury Islands condominium from 1939 to 1979, the island is now a possession of the Republic of Kiribati.
Birnie Island is a small, uninhabited coral island, 20 hectares in area, part of the Phoenix Island group, that is part of the Republic of Kiribati. It is located about 100 kilometres southeast of Kanton Island and 90 kilometres west-northwest of Rawaki Island, formerly known as Phoenix Island. It lies at 03°35′S171°33′W. Birnie Island measures only 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi) long and 0.5 kilometres (0.3 mi) wide. There is no anchorage, but landing can be made on the lee shore.
McKean Island is a small, uninhabited island in the Phoenix Islands, Republic of Kiribati. Its area is 57 hectares.
Rawaki is one of the Phoenix Islands in the Republic of Kiribati, also known by its previous name of Phoenix Island. It is a small, uninhabited atoll, approximately 1.2 by 0.8 kilometres in size and 65 hectares in area, with a shallow, brackish lagoon that is not connected to the open sea. It is located at 3.721°S 170.712°W.
Admiral George Anson Byron, 7th Baron Byron was a British nobleman, naval officer, peer, politician, and the seventh Baron Byron, in 1824 succeeding his cousin the poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron in that peerage. As a career naval officer, he was notable for being his predecessor's opposite in temperament and lifestyle.
The Starbuck family were prominent in the history of whaling in the United States, based in Nantucket, Massachusetts, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Some members of the family gained wider exposure due to their discovery of various islands in the Pacific Ocean.
L'Aigle was launched in France in 1801, 1802, or 1803. The British Royal Navy captured her in 1809. From 1810 to 1817, she was a West Indiaman. From 1817 L'Aigle made four complete voyages as a whaler in the British Southern Whale fishery. On her third whaling voyage, she carried King Kamehameha II of Hawaii and Queen Kamāmalu with a number of their retainers and Hawaiian notables to England. She was lost on 6 March 1830 on her fifth whaling voyage.
Advise and consent to ratification by the Senate June 21, 1983;
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