According to Mashable, images of the five remote islands, Tern Island and East Island at French Frigate Shoals,
Laysan Island, Lisianski Island, and Pearl and Hermes Atoll, cover 20 miles located within the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge.
The release of 24 Nihoa miller-birds on
Laysan Island began a new chapter in the recovery efforts for this critically endangered species.
For 150 years, Laysan ducks were restricted to an estimated 4 [km.sup.2] of land on
Laysan Island in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
In 1923, the same year that the Nihoa millerbird was scientifically described by Alexander Wetmore, the Laysan miller bird, endemic to
Laysan Island, was declared extinct.
The duck comes from the isolated
Laysan Island, which lies 225km off the Hawaiian Islands.
In the wild, the ducks are found only on
Laysan island, an idyllic, tiny strip of sand and palm trees in the Pacific.
In 1890, Kauai native George Wilcox formed the North Pacific Phosphate and Fertilizer Company to mine guano on
Laysan Island in the northwest Hawaiian archipelago.
- Distributions of species were analyzed to determine single-island endemism, where the following groups were each considered a single island: Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (Kure Atoll, Midway Island, Pearl and Hermes Reef, Lisianski Island,
Laysan Island, Gardner Island, French Frigate Shoals, Necker Island), Nihoa, Ni'ihau, Kaua'i, O'ahu, Maui Nui complex (Maui, Moloka'i, Lana'i, and Kaho'olawe), and the island of Hawai'i.
After more than a week trapped indoors by high winds and driving rain on
Laysan Island, Robby Kohley and Cameron Rutt, biologists with the Miller-bird Translocation Project, were eager to get back outside.
Today, however, it is restricted to
Laysan Island, a single predator-free coraline island of only 990 acres (400 hectares) northwest of the main islands.
The Albatross on 10 May then proceeded west to
Laysan Island and vicinity.