Max Schlemmer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Maximilian "Max" Schlemmer (1856-1935) was the self-proclaimed "King of Laysan" and superintendent of a guano mining operation on the Hawaiian island of Laysan, where he lived from 1894 to 1915. While the gross desecration of and extinction of species on Laysan during the early 1900s cannot be blamed completely on him, much of it came as a result of his actions. Ironically, Max was probably the man who most loved Laysan, judging by his reluctance to leave and enthusiasm to return again.
Contents |
[edit] Early years
Schlemmer was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1871 when he was fifteen. In 1885, he moved to Hawaii and worked in sugar plantations on various islands until he was hired to oversee a Japanese guano mining labor force on Laysan in 1894. In 1895, he brought his new sixteen year-old wife, Therese, to Laysan and subsequently had five kids with her, in addition to the three from his previous marriage.
[edit] "King of Laysan"
Schlemmer was made superintendent of the guano operation in 1896. Soon after, he left to open a bar and boardinghouse on Kauai during which time a Japanese miner was murdered during a dispute between American and Japanese workers. In the ensuing court case, the existing superintendent was removed and Max returned to Laysan again. For his children's amusement— and for a possible meat-canning business later— he released rabbits, hares, and guinea pigs onto Laysan, which proved to be a move that he would regret until the end of his life. Schlemmer failed to realize the consequeneces of introducing invasive species on a delicate ecosystem. The North Pacific Phosphate and Fertiizer Company sold their mining rights to Schlemmer, and he in turn sold them to a Genkichi Yamanouchi of Tokyo, allowing him to export anything from Laysan. Yamanouchi, used this permission to export not guano, which had been mostly depleted, but bird feathers.
With the creation of the bird reservation in 1909, however, these activities became illegal, and Schlemmer was removed from the island. The rabbits that he let loose previously now became uncontrolled and ravaged the island for food. The US Biological Survey sent a crew to exterminate them in 1913, but ran out of ammunition after five-thousand were killed, leaving a subsatntial number still alive. Max couldn't live away from Laysan, and in 1915 the government allowed him to return while denying his request to become a federal game warden. With nothing to eat on the bare island, Schlemmer's family nearly starved before they were rescued by the USS Nereus. With World War I having broken out, he was falsely accused of being a German spy using Laysan as his headuarters[1]. This was the last straw for Schlemmer; he left Laysan forever and was a janitor the rest of his life.
[edit] Repercussions of the Rabbit Outbreak
Not all of the animals on Laysan were hardy enough to survive the following few years, in which time Laysan was turned into a venerable desert void of vegetation. Many species became extinct in the early 1920s, including the Laysan Rail (which survived on other islands afterwards but soon became extinct there, too), the Laysan Millerbird, and the Laysan Fan Palm. The Laysan Finch and the Laysan Duck only survived because of scavenging dead birds, and the inordinate numbers of brine flies at the lake, repectively.
